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No serial port on new computer

Colin

Colin

New Member
In getting away from the old HDD drives, I'm pro-actively retiring my 5 year old Win7 machine, and have purchased a brand new Win10 machine with SSD drives. In getting it set up, I've discovered that it doesn't have a 9 pin Serial port which I need for my Summa D750Pro plotter. What I thought was a Serial port is a 15 pin VGA port. Gah.

So what is the solution? A Serial - USB adapter? I seem to recall that the plotter needs a Com1 or Com2 to work? I just don't live & breathe this stuff.

(Of course the outlet I bought the computer from is closed today).
 
A

AF

New Member
USB to serial cable may work and is not expensive. You could also get a serial port PCI card for better compatability than the converter cable.
 
Colin

Colin

New Member
Crap. I'm having one hell of a time with this new PCI card. I've downloaded the driver(s) and tried all of the Com ports, but I can't get that plotter to budge. Anybody an expert on this sort of thing?
 
Colin

Colin

New Member
Got it! I learned that if you're switching the serial cable from one outlet to another, you have to then re-boot the computer before it'll work.
 
Colin

Colin

New Member
decalman said:
This is why I am sticking to windows 7.
Click to expand...

I too was reluctant to make the switch, but this issue had nothing to do with 10 vs 7, it's just that new motherboards generally don't come with the old legacy serial ports anymore, so one just needs to get a PCI card added. It's all working well with Summa WinPlot on Windows 10.

It's nice having a fresh build; a Samsung 950 Pro 250 GB SSD for the operating system, Samsung 850 1TB for all data, 64 GB Ram, GFORCE GTX 960 card, and Z170 Pro Gaming MB ought to make things snappy.

Moore's Law seems to be plateauing, but my 5 year old 6-core Win7 machine has served its purpose and time to move on. I was tempted to just clone my existing HDD to a new SSD, but I'd be cloning over all that bloat, and then the MB and PS are still 5 years old, so elected for all new. I won't miss those long boot-up times!
 
J

John L

New Member
I have put off getting a new machine for soooo long. Still on Win7 myself. I need to get into a store and fool around with Win10 to see how bad it really is. Any software computability issues?
 
Colin

Colin

New Member
John L said:
I have put off getting a new machine for soooo long. Still on Win7 myself. I need to get into a store and fool around with Win10 to see how bad it really is. Any software compatibility issues?
Click to expand...

No software issues yet, except for an old Canon 4200F scanner, which only "kinda" works on Win7 anyway, so not surprised that it wouldn't work on 10. Time for a new scanner anyway, I can't stand how long it takes to warm up for a scan.

As far as the Win10 "privacy" issues goes, a lot of the stuff you see online is likely fear/hype/conspiracy based. An IT friend of mine offered this: "The settings fall into three categories: serving personalized context aware ads; personalized product enhancement (e.g. customized type-ahead and auto correct), and product usage tracking (so MS can know what features to spend development time on). I very much doubt there is anything nefarious going on - MS wants to serve "you" (as in your advertising id) specific ads (so advertisers will pay them more) and wants to know how you use their products so they can make them better. I guarantee you every online service (especially if you are not paying for it) is doing something similar."

http://lifehacker.com/what-windows-10s-privacy-nightmare-settings-actually-1722267229

http://arstechnica.com/information-...ndows-10-just-cant-stop-talking-to-microsoft/
 
WildWestDesigns

WildWestDesigns

Active Member
John L said:
I have put off getting a new machine for soooo long. Still on Win7 myself. I need to get into a store and fool around with Win10 to see how bad it really is. Any software computability issues?
Click to expand...


Win 10 itself, as far as usability goes, it isn't all that bad. My dad come home from a trip to find that his computer "upgraded" to 10, so I had spent some time with it then trying to minimize as much as I could.

Ironically, it has some things now that have been in Unix-like systems for years (better late then never). It has some nice features to it though and it seems to be a smooth running OS from what time I spent with it on my dad's computer.

As far as your software goes, especially if you are running legacy software, I would just go to the websites of those vendors and see which version(s) are being supported for Win 10. Or if you have a computer able to handle running a VM, run a trial of Win 10 and install the software on that VM and see how it works.

With regard to privacy goes, I think that there are valid points (at least I like to think so as I do have some concerns with it), are they as big as people make them out to be right now? Probably not. Personally, I don't like an OS that I have less and less control with. Even if that control comes with the risk of breaking an install. And I am not fond of using 3rd party tools to do something that should be allowed within the OS (at least in my mind should be allowed).
 
OldPaint

OldPaint

New Member
#1. i dont BUY OFF THE SHELF COMPUTERS......
my needs and adaptations are not those of joe shmoe internet user computer person.
I BUILD ALL OF MINE except laptops.........but then those are not used everyday for production.
i presently run a 2.8 QUAD core amd, 4 gigs ram, 250 gig SSD HARD DRIVE with my old IESA 160 GIG as slave D: WIN 7 32 bit.
it is probably 5-6 years old and i have 2 PCI add on slots with 2 LPT PORTS for my older stuff to connect to it has 6-8 USB 4 on the front and 4 on the back......
i built it for under $400.
the wifes old E machine i up dated m/b, AMD 6 CORE 2.3 gig with 8 gigs a ram for just at $200.00
and they both scream........
 
GAC05

GAC05

Quit buggin' me
Colin,
what brand of cereal port did you end up buying?.....

cerealport.jpg


wayne k
guam usa
 
Colin

Colin

New Member
John L said:
I have put off getting a new machine for soooo long. Still on Win7 myself. I need to get into a store and fool around with Win10 to see how bad it really is. Any software computability issues?
Click to expand...

For quite some time we kept clicking off the “Free Win10 upgrade” pop-up window that appeared every day on my wife’s Win7 desktop computer, and then one day it just forced itself upon us and downloaded Win10 anyway. Nice. Pretty heavy-handed of Microsoft if you ask me.

Anyway, we just learned of one issue last night, and something for those who use Outlook and an Apple product to watch for. My wife connected her iPad to her computer yesterday, and somehow or other it sync’d with her Outlook address book, and instead of simply “copying” the contacts, it took them and then deleted them all from Outlook. Grrrrr. So be sure that your address book is backed up!

Found this:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...y/eba76509-3e74-418b-8f8d-06d119ab01c5?auth=1
 
Techman

Techman

New Member
some motherboards (maybe retain the serial port header onboard. Look to see if it is there. If it is all you need is the header cable.
 
Colin

Colin

New Member
Techman said:
some motherboards (maybe retain the serial port header onboard. Look to see if it is there. If it is, all you need is the header cable.
Click to expand...

This is an image I found online of my particular MOBO. Is this the serial header that you're speaking of?
 

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