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[Bob]

We've tested several USB->Serial (rs232) converters. Many of them have poor driver support and are not designed for high speed continuous use. Many do not support hardware handshaking either. We have found that the Belkin  F5U109 (a very inexpensive model) works perfectly and also supports high baud rates and hardware flow control. The com port to use with these is usually com5 or higher (see iceconfig).

Also, a user reported that you can share a single usb serial converter with 2 PC's connected to a Unix host on one serial line (of course you can't use them BOTH at the same time). A neat trick so I thought I'd pass along the comment....

The belkin F5U109 (usb - serial converter) together with the F1U201 Peripheral 2 port switch (2 to 1 usb device) worked really well with Ice Ten to switch between 2 computers to 1 serial port.

[hargreaves]

Can I assume from this comment, that it is possible to connect to a Unix box from the USB port of a laptop ( it doesn't have a serial port) using ICETEN.  We are using version 4.2 of ICETEN

Thank you

Margaret

[Bob]

Yes but you should update to 4.7 since 4.2 is no longer supported.

[gaisales]

Can this method be used if our serial port has failed and we need to switch to a USB port? (ICE.TEN 4.7.12) On a PC Desktop unit.

[Bob]

Yes.
By the way, the F5U109 has been replaced by the F5U409. They are functionally the same.
Your port will probably be com5.

[gaisales]

Thanks, this worked perfectly! Windows still thinks the serial port is fine but its not. The new Belkin converter worked.

[Bob]

Good to hear.

A few common problems when a built in serial port stops working:

1) The port took a transient hit from either the power line or a nearby lightning strike. This often blows out the line driver chip on the serial port. That is why it still looks good in windows which cannot detect that problem.

2) The -12v line in the computer power supply has died. The only device that uses -12v is the serial port so the computer operates as normal in all other ways. The PC health status in the bios can detect this (If your bios has it).