Disabled Serial Ports So Modem Could Work. Is There a Better Way?

[Harry]

I'm in the processing of moving my cards into another computer, I had some great IRQ modem problems conflicting with my serial ports. I installed the cards one at a time but that didnt' seem to make any difference. After a few hours, I gave up and called US-Robotics and worked every angle with no success until after about 3 hours when we gave up and just decided to disable the Serial Ports in the Bios. That worked but now I don't have any functioning serial ports. Mouse and keyboard work fine because they are not using the serial port. So everything works fine except if I ever want to use the serial ports with something. Is there anything else I could have done?

[mike breck]

Hi Harry,

I wouldn't worry about it. Disabling the Serial Ports is the standard way of freeing up two IRQs to help resolve IRQ conflicts.

In fact, I tend to disable the Serial Ports just as a matter of course - unless I am using a Serial External Modem.

Apart from a Serial External Modem, I can't think of anything else that you would want to use the Serial Ports for these days anyway.

HTH

[Harry]

I just wanted to say thanks Mike. That really helps.

[jbutcher]

I disagree with Mike. There are Digital Cameras, PDA's, Palm Pilots, etc that may require use of your serial port. You may try changing the settings on your modem card to use a different IRQ and Com address. That should give you the best of both worlds.

[reboot]

If the modem is installed and working, all you need to do is activate ONE of the com ports in BIOS, and restart. Windows should sort out the resources by itself. If that's successful, you can then activate the other com port.
You MUST have ACPI enabled to do this, or you'll run out of ports, and cause a conflict.
Check device manager, System devices, PCI bus, Properties, IRQ mapping, and see what's enabled there...play with the settings...

[mike breck]

Well as far as I can see, as long as you're not intending to run out and buy a lot of serial devices in the forseeable future, then disabling your Serial Ports is not a problem.

You can always use USB or Firewire for added peripherals. If your mobo doesn't support either, then you can buy a PCI card which will give you the necessary ports for that capability.