Old Palm PDA/USB adapter woes

May 16, 2006 8:34 PM

Syncing an old PDA with a USB/Serial Adapter. Help me figure out why I can't choose a COM port that isn't busy, and what I need to do about it.

I have a Palm Vx originally purchased in 2000; I haven't been making much use of it lately but would like to begin again. The Palm itself works fine. However, this version of the Palm syncs using a serial connection, and my new computer doesn't have a serial port (at the time I bought the computer, I didn't think about the issue -- stupid, but there you are). I bought a Keyspan USB Serial Adapter, which is supposed to bridge this connection. It seems to function-- we used it once, successfully, to sync data from my wife's old PDA to her new laptop (she's since gotten an updated PDA). However, on my current PC (running XP), when I try to use it to sync the Palm, it tells me that COM 4 is busy. This port is the one automatically assigned to the adapter by its software, and it's the only one my Hot Sync Manager allows me to select for the Palm to use. The Keyspan documentation gives me little help. Anything obvious I'm doing wrong, or should be trying?

posted by BT to computers & internet (4 comments total)

Use the Keyspan Serial Assistant to change the COM port your Keyspan adapter is presently using from the busy COM 4 port, to an idle COM port. Their instruction manual explains how to do this.

Presumably you would choose an idle COM port in the Assistant, and change your Hot Sync Manager to use this new COM port assignment.
posted by Mr. Six at 8:46 PM on May 16, 2006

On my laptop (which is set up with multiple user profiles), I can sync up if I'm logged in as one of the users, but if I try to while logged in as any other user, I get the "Com Port is busy" error message. Maybe that is your case also?
posted by mediaddict at 10:33 PM on May 16, 2006

I tried to use a dodgy Taiwanese USB/serial adapter and had problems like this all the time. I repeatedly had to switch the COM port and restart the computer to get it to work. My advice is to spend $20 on eBay and get a used m500 and USB cable and save yourself a lot of grief.
posted by grouse at 2:12 AM on May 17, 2006

I've consulted the manual, Mr. Six. The problem is that the Assistant doesn't actually give me any options to change the port mapping. It grays out the "delete port mapping" button.

Hot Sync Manager only shows me COM 4 as available -- no others.

If I exit from Hot Sync Manager, the Keyspan Assistant then shows COM 4 as Idle. But of course, if I manually turn off the Hot Sync Manager, the sync doesn't work...

Anybody think reinstalling the software for the assitant would help? Or is grouse right and I should give up.

And mediaaddict, I'm the only profile on this computer.
posted by BT at 4:20 AM on May 17, 2006