com port dead?

[eboyjones]

Have a pcchips 598lmr motherboard on a back-up home computer. It was working great until I reformated the hard drive. Now when I boot up my install disk from a floppy the computer can't find a mouse.The mouse is a serial device. All I get is search all ports type "mouse /f. I tried
different cables and different mice. How can a simple reformat make me loose my com port?

[clarinathan]

When you reformated the drive did you go into the bios first to set it to boot from floppy. If so maybe you accidently changed the com port setting?

Also have you tried the boot disk on another computer to see if it finds the floppy used there. Maybe the disk has stopped working?

As a last thought you could check that the cables are all plugged in properly inside and out. You never know when these things might work loose and it might just be co-incidence that it happened just when you reformated.

The only other thing might be to start the install for windows and see if that detects the mouse.

Hope this helps
Nathan

[NooNoo]

Eboyjones, I would also test whether it is windows or it is the machine that has a problem with the comport <a href="http://downloads.zdnet.co.uk/downloads/detail/1002-2110-900552.html" target="_blank">Download the latest Dos Mouse driver</a> and install it. If your mouse works in DOS you know that windows is unhappy with its configuration.

If it doesn't work in DOS then you should look in bios setup to ensure the comports are enabled.

[freddy]

have tried to do a search on this board ,,,and seems to be a older one (i notice that pcchips list 3 models RE: bios update) hope fully this is the model <a href="http://www.intelaf.com/598l.asp" target="_blank">http://www.intelaf.com/598l.asp</a>

,,,anyway with that out of the was , i would suggest going into the bios and checking to see if the boot order can be changed to cd-rom / ide /floppy , and then use your (you did not say what o/s u were using) or at least borrow/beg/steal (jokin) a win 98 CD and boot from it (the CD)
,,,even if u are on 95 (u can decline) when u go thru the non GUI start you will be prompted to install 98 and a box WITH (hopefully a mouse) will appear ,,,,this will hopefully resolve mouse driver prog inacuracies ,,

if the mouse IS NOT there then (even if u say you have already) TURN OFF and try another mouse, and/or go into the bios and set the page/whole to "bios defaults/setup defaults" not forgetting to alter boot up preferance and maybe printer cfg if using a scanner etc.

good luck

FtF

[eboyjones]

Tried all your suggestions, but no good. I'm going to pick up a atx form card to install a ps/2 mouse and see if that works, but I would still like a com port. I have an ISA slot open so maybe I could get some suggestions on what type of card I could get to have a com port.

[freddy]

well u might be strugglin if u only have an isa slot ,,the obvious answer would be to get a USB card and a mouse ,,,as they (at least in the UK) are "giving" away the USB 1 cards (as usb2 is getting popular ,,but i would imagine they will be PCI

If you can locate a "old" 486 ,,you may be able to take out the old i/o card (they are about £12.00 in the uk) ,,,but be warned they have a LOT of jumpers to enable/disable the floppy/ide/serial/printer etc ,,,could come in handy if u wan,t a second printer port ,,,,

although saying this ,,,time wize i would be tempted to buy new.

good luck

FtF

[geoscomp]

One of the cards we sell here is from Manhatten Computer Products, and I have seen other brands that have the same configuration..it's an isa ide multi-controller card with 2 serial ports, one EPP parallel port and two IDE channels, any one or more of the functions can be disabled. The nice thing is the wholesale price is around $16.00 and we have used them without problems in a number of machines. I've been looking for our source on cards we used to sell that had a ps-2 and serial port on the same card..if I find it I will get it to you

[eboyjones]

picked up the atx card today and it fixed my problem with a mouse. Card gives me the option of using ps/2 or usb mouse, and it has an infared port. I decided to use onboard sound to free up a pci slot and get a 2 Port 16550 PCI Serial Card. I really appreciat all the help.