open serial port

[hey__me]

On my laptop, some mysterious program is opening Com1. Does anyone know of a good tool that will report who has the port open? Anything that I can do to open the port before anything else tries (ie on bootup) and see if I can at least get the program to complain that it is already open?

Computer is running Win2k sp3

I've tried changing the port and IRQ to to Com2 and I was able to access the port for one boot up. Next time I booted, I couldn't open it again.

Thanks for any insight

[NooNoo]

What processes do you you have running?
Right click the task bar - task manager, processes tab.

[hey__me]

nothing out of the ordinary, I've shut down any/all processes that it will let me, and made sure that no unknown services were running. If I change my IRQ setting, I can use the port until I reboot. No program complains nothing... very odd. Everytime I need it now, I just change the IRQ.

[TripleRLtd]

nothing out of the ordinary, I've shut down any/all processes that it will let me, and made sure that no unknown services were running. If I change my IRQ setting, I can use the port until I reboot. No program complains nothing... very odd. Everytime I need it now, I just change the IRQ.

Well, it obviously works, so, any communication type programs installed that you don't use: fax\pcanywhere\laplink types?
Also, out of curiosity, which serial port 1 or 2?
Do you have a modem?
If so what is it?
Have you tried looking in bios to see if you can manually set your serial ports?
And if you do so, what happens then?

[TripleRLtd]

SisoftSandra: will give info on ports and usage.

http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/

Also, I would like to know what you are having a problem with.
In other words you posted this in modems,etc drivers forum.

Anything that I can do to open the port before anything else tries (ie on bootup) and see if I can at least get the program to complain that it is already open

I don't know of anything other than a proper config, but someone else here might.
What program is actually complaining?

[hey__me]

Anything that I try using the port with. Including Hyperterminal. I couldn't find a forum that dealt with com port issues, so I figured this was the closest one.

Thanks for the help

[hey__me]

still haven't found the program tieing up the port, however, I did find a way around for now. As long as I change the irq setting after I boot up, and don't reboot any software that I need to use the com port will work.

[confus-ed]

My words of wisdom on this one are 'chipset patches present ?'

IRQ allocation is done initially by bios then windoze kicks in & dependant on o/s then does things one of two ways ... this appears to be w2k, so that'd be using ACPI bios (but can you confirm that it was on & thus windows is doing it this way, when it was installed) , so its either chipset patches or a 'faulty' bios (I put faulty in quotes as it means its not designed for ACPI under w2k/xp rather than bust )

Mismatched allocations is not at all unusual at all, & very often produces symptoms just like these ...All that 'it works until I reboot' stuff seems to confirm this to me.