Serial port died

September 18, 2006 1:44 AM

What to do about a serial port failure?

I use a serial port to synchronise my ancient Palm Vx with an almost as ancient Compaq Prosignia PC. The serial port has stopped working since I recently moved house. As I know very little about electronics, I see little point in opening up the PC and trying to rectify what might be, for example, a loose connection or faulty resistor.

I figure my options are either to install a PCI serial port controller or replace the entire motherboard / processor etc. (which it's high time I did anyway as the PC is a struggling PIII). What would you do?

posted by cbrody to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

Its not worth replacing the entire motherboard. You really want to spend that kind of time? Incidentally, for about $150 you can get a much newer CPU box (ie, without peripherals or monitor) -- you can get it on ebay and sometimes gateway/dell etc have massive sales (check techbargains.com for online e-coupons for these stores). I bought my mother a $150 pentium IV last year, brand new from dell (we re-used the peripherals; just got the box-only). If you do this, for very little money you'll get a massive upgrade of your entire system - processor, memory, bus speeds, hard drive, etc.

If you insist on 'repairing' this aging museum piece, then probably you have two options:

1) obviously a serial port PCI card would solve it, tho again if you want to save serious cash, get it on ebay.

2) You COULD buy a serial-to-usb converter, should be about 15 bucks online/ebay. It'll come with software/driver you'll need to install, but it should work. You may have to reassign the serial port in the palm software before its recognized.
Here's an example at Amazon.
You can find additional examples by searching for "serial to usb converter" on amazon/ebay/froogle.
posted by jak68 at 1:55 AM on September 18, 2006

One of these.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 1:59 AM on September 18, 2006

I used a third-party serial-to-USB converter for my Palm Vx. It was not a good solution—it kinda worked intermittently. Other people couldn't get theirs to work at all. Palm withdrew their own converter from the market because it didn't work well enough. I don't recommend this route.

You could get a used Palm m500 that has USB built-in for about $20. Plus the m500 is pretty much like the Vx except nicer.
posted by grouse at 4:28 AM on September 18, 2006

Serial to USB adapters often fail to work with this kind of device. If you go that route make sure you can return it.

PCI Serial cards are pretty cheap and may be transferable to your next machine.
posted by Mitheral at 5:57 AM on September 18, 2006

A PIII? Don't even think about repairing it. Get one of these.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 8:03 AM on September 18, 2006

if you don't think a serial card will work, don't bother replacing the motherboard/cpu ... start over with a new computer
posted by pyramid termite at 10:01 AM on September 18, 2006

Response by poster: Update: Bought a serial-USB cable and it doesn't work even on the lowest speed settings. I'll try the PCI card route next but my PC is showing other signs of expiring -- hope I can synchronise before I lose everything!
posted by cbrody at 10:05 AM on September 18, 2006

cbrody, did a driver come with the serial-usb adapter? If so, make sure to download it/install it. I used to have a palm IIIxe (long time ago) which I successfully used with a serial-usb converter. It was tricky getting it going, but it did work. Involved a) installing its own driver; b) getting palm software to recognize the new virtual port. This was tricky, since it involved editing the usb port settings in device manager as well as the settings in palm software (palm tech support should be able to help, or their online forums).

If you dont want to wrestle with it tho, then yes, PCI card will be MUCH simpler; and even better option would be to just buy a new cheap cpu box and solve a host of problems and potential problems with your computer in one shot.
posted by jak68 at 12:27 PM on September 18, 2006