com4 'stolen' by another device?

I've installed the 3com modem/ethernet and intel 2000BG wireless network cards into my CF-28 tonight and when I've powered up and installed drivers for the additional hardware (ether/modem drivers installed automatically, and I downloaded drivers for the 2200BG direct from Intel's site) something's happened to the port setup which has stopped the GPS engine working on com 4 like it was previously.

Device manager still shows the wireless modem using com5 and com6 under the 'com port' list, and it looks like com9 has been allocated to the modem on the 3com card, however com4 remains unavailable and when I select the Huawei modem in the 'modem' list, it shows it's using com4!

What is the best way to 'clean' this up? Last time this occured (when I installed the GPS engine) I uninstalled the wireless modem software and let it re-install again when I plugged the device into the back USB port. WOuld that still work now that I've got the ether/modem and wi-fi cards installed?

Craig.

 

Not an easy answer but I will try

Software might not fix this

I do not have a cf-28 in front of me and even the 28's I have had did not have all the options that you have in yours but I will give you a few suggestions
Try adjusting the settings one by one in the bios, taking note of the changes in device manager
You will be able to adjust irq's in the advanced settings in the bios

Other than that I have had results with different combinations in the advanced com port settings in device manager, but that can be time consuming as you have to try to get say com 4 avail by changing whats using it now to free it up for the gps
Sometimes because of windows reserving port #s you have to force a change to a unused port for a device and reboot and go back and forth to get everything working
I allways disable say the dial up modem as its not used normaly and it ties up an irq and com port
Its hard for me to discribe my troubleshooting procedures but I run into issues with com ports like this quite often
The resolution is often a combination of small changes ,that result in success


Alex

 

To add to this you can try disabling items in the bios until the gps is fine and enable again and it might keep the gps where it should be


Alex

 

Craig,
I haven't tried it as I have never attempted internal GPS due to lack of interest, but the USGobalsat GPS management app called GPS info might find the GPS. It scans all the com ports looking for NMEA 183 data.
CAP

 

Here's the easy try at fixing it.... Go into Device Manager and UNINSTALL all your COM ports... Then reboot.... They should find their correct COM ports again... I have had this happen to me when I installed something new in the mix. This usually works for me. If it doesn't work... Go into the BIOS and Disable a few of the things that you don't use... Then try again...

 

GREAT IDEA!

 

Good plan. I've tried my idea of de-installing the wireless broadband software, then re-installing, and it's sort of worked.

I am now able to get the GPS engine to appear to communicate with Winfast, etc. again if I manually set the data rate to 4800 bps. However, the 'modem' device assigned to the Huawei 3G stick still shows up as com4, even though the com port list down further in device manager clearly shows it using com5 for the '3g application interface' and com6 for the '3g pc ui interface'.

I've got visual gps running right now and it's showing a string of NMEA data sentences in the command monitor window, but no satellite numbers in the signal quality window. I didn't disconnect the GPS antenna in the bump.

I wouldn't have thought it's possible for different devices to 'share' a com port and still function? I've shifted the Huawei's modem device onto com10 using device manager and the wireless connection comes up ok, and the GPS engine still talks using com4 if the port is manually set to 4800 bps.

As for the BIOS, I looked at that before running Windows up again after the last reboot and the 3com modem doesn't appear in the BIOS device listing, however the GPS does and it's still enabled on IRQ 10 (which matches what I get when I open up com4 in device manager and look at its advanced settings).

BTW, the 'RIM' board everyone talks about - is that the PCB that the GPS engine is mounted on? If it is, I'm fairly sure I know where I can find some and then I could give up on the factory GPS and go for one of the alternatives (EM-408 perhaps).

Craig.

 

You got it! The RIM board is a daughterboard that mounts just below the battery on the 28. It can be used to hardwire the EM408 GPS engine to. Just make sure if you find a source that they have the ribbon cable that goes from that daughterboard to the motherboard.

 

Where that might get interesting if you have 2 applications running at the same time using the same com port
Software will usually report that that port is unavailable and is being used by another program, and will not open the port to the second program requesting it

Alex

 

Going on the pic I saw it did - looks identical to the board the factory GPS module is fitted to in this CF28 but has some sort of wierd radio modem card mounted to it. Since the factory GPS seems to be behaving very oddly I am not at all sure what's going on so the aftermarket option seems more interesting by the minute. No problem with a bit of soldering. Built entire computers (Australian-designed Applix 1616 for anyone who knows what that is) by hand before.

I'm still a bit unsure about how com4 can access the GPS engine and show up as being used by another device at the same time. Strange. THen again I think the factory GPS engine is strange given it's not an actual device as such but that could be because it's mounted on a board originally designed for another purpose.

The 3com combo modem/ether card seems to be ok and the intel 2200BG wireless card seems ok too - these two extra network devices show up fine in the windows taskbar (nothing using either yet) and I'm not seeing any warnings about com port conflicts (does Windows know how to detect that sort of thing?).

BTW on a side note I see Dlink finally has a router (DIR-541) that can have a wireless modem plugged into it and turn that into a local 802.11g network that can be shared with multiple hosts. The device also has 4 ports of TP ethernet, and it has both a PCMCIA and USB port which should support 3G modem devices. I need something to test the Intel wireless card with and since I have wired and wireless supporting hardware here (my sun workstation has no wireless and neither does the HP printer I'm getting), a meshed networking switch is going to be ideal!

On another side note, is the Intel 2915BG (which supports 802.11 a as well as b and g) a useful thing to have instead of a 2200BG? I don't know of anything that uses 5 GHz wi-fi (the 2915 specs indicate it supports 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz).

Craig.

 

Alex,
For GPS, Franson/GPSgate will allow as many apps to simultaneously use the GPS out put as you care to add.
CAP

 

Cap
Hopefully he can get it running properly without a software solution


Alex

 

Well the GPS engine is definitely outputting NMEA data again with com4 manually set to 4800 bps, but it's not giving any satellite info. I don't mean signal strength data, I mean it's not giving any satellite numbers at all (the signal monitor window shows blank satellite data boxes with no satellite numbers displaying) and I can see that from the NMEA stream showing in the command monitor window of Visual GPS.

I don't know if that's a 'cold-start' problem with the engine itself but I will make sure the antenna hasn't disconnect itself from the engine in a while and run up the GPS software again as a 'control'. I'm growing more and more sus that because the GPS engine board and the antenna were not packed in any anti-static protection and maybe it's got some latent problem which could be caused by static damage during transit. The seller (in the UK) has not yet responded to my email so I won't diss the person until something is nutted out. I've just sent another message to the seller through the Bay of Evils... Dunno if the person uses these forums but we'll see!

Craig.

 

Alex, Franson is for 2 applications sharing the device on one com port, ie a GPS. It works great for that, and I don't know of another way to do it. I don't think it is possible to share two devices on one com port, that would be insanity!
CAP

 

See the 'retrofitting a factory gps kit to cf-28' thread for something appropriate that that just occured...

Craig.

 

Cap
Yes I have tested it before
I have had all kinds of issues over the years that I have run into with com ports
For instance
Having a gps output signal in garmin format only
Having a gps ouput signal in SiRF output only
Having a gps output signal at 57600 baud not the 4800 baud that the application required
Franson has been helpful , but when I can, I have flashed gps bios chips to get the output that I require
On my desktop computers that I build for marine use I install 3 or 4 serial com ports hard wired in
To get around the 2 application running on 1 gps, I split the gps nema data to 2 com ports , for example com 1 and com 2 , that allows for 2 applications running at the same time sharing the gps signal
The nema spec allows for up to 3 devices on a single gps nema output ,
And other com ports are used to interface Sat-internet , AIS Collision Avoidance Receiver,Depth sounders, etc
And when I really load up the com inputs I install a Multiplexer which takes the signals from many devices and allows you to choose the data sentences you want for each device as to not overload the com port and sends it to 1 com port only


Alex

 

Alex,
Have you tried the Brookhouse multiplexer? The tugs now use one for just the same reasons you mention, mostly AIS. I forget which one they are using, but I have been looking at the Brookhouse site for years, just never really needed one. Of course need and want are not the same thing!
CAP

 

Hi well home from work (turned out to be a short shift!) and the computer was still merilly running Visual GPS but no satellites, however the com port was still appearing to work properly.

I still think something about installing the 3com ether/modem board + the Intel 2200BG wifi board has caused a change as before that happened, the GPS software displayed satellite numbers and the NMEA data stream clearly showed a lot more info that it's currently outputting.

I currently have the GPS engine set to 'auto' in the BIOS - what difference would it make changing that to 'enabled' in terms of how the com ports are configured for the various devices that want to use them?

Craig.

 

Craig

I had a cf-28 that I installed devices in both mini-pci ports
In that case I had added a wi-fi 802.11 card in one slot and either left the 56K modem in the other or the other had a network card..I can't remember which
The wi-fi card did not work when I first tried it
The resolution was to exchange the slots used, and then both cards worked
Now I don't know if that will solve some issues with your setup , but its worth a try
I omitted the 56k dial up ,to again free up com's and irq's


Alex

 

Cap

Some of the ais receivers I use except the input from the gps and combine at 38400baud for both to allow for only 1 input to the computer

But I prefer to separate to allow for faster data transfers

Yes I have used the Brookhouse and run into 3 other brands

I do mostly troubleshooting and upgrading computers, or adding on an extra nema device as I don’t get full installations because I don’t live in a large yacht outfitting area such as Vancouver or Seattle


Alex

 

I have the 3com card closest to the connector panel since the lead for the RJ45 ethernet connection is short and won't reach to the second card location (I have the Intel wifi card there). An option I haven't looked at yet is getting an original ethernet mini-PCI card instead of a 3com combo card to try out, as that doesn't have a modem device. I've found one Evil Bay seller that has those cards.

Worth a go as I'm still suspicious of the com ports and how they're set up for each of the various devices that requires them. The GPS engine seems to output valid data, yet I can't work out if the current behaviour (not outputting any information about satellites) is related to the com port effects of having the new miniPCI cards installed, or simply a quirk of the GPS engine.

If I could locate a cable for the ethernet which was long enough to snake around to the card location further away from the connector panel I'd swap them around though that would mean cutting/pasting all that nicely applied silicone.

Craig.

 

I would remove some devices and see if you can get a lock on some satellites

Without having the ability to swap in a second known to work gps module and antenna is not so good

I would also download a different gps program to double check you results

Or use HyperTerminal in windows. Its in your communications program listing in xp

Just open a direct com port connection at the 4800 baud rate and look at the data strings

Even without the sat display if you can read data strings and see your lat/lon displayed you might be fine

Alex

 

I think you have a different problem now. You seemed to have solved any comm conflict you might have had given that you now have streaming data from the GPS. The problem now is that you are not "seeing" any satellites to lock onto. I know you said you checked the antenna, but this is the only thing that would prevent seeing satellites when your GPS is streaming as it should. I would triple check that antenna, maybe try a second one if you have it. You can also read the threads going on about adding a copper foil behind the antenna to add to its ground giving it better gain for seeing. I would be concentrating on that. Comm port problems and conflicts would be preventing your PC to see the GPS and therefore give you NO streaming data. Bad antenna or antenna connections would give you streaming data but no satellites.

Give it a try..

 

Doobi is right, your problem is antenna related and not comm. Also the problem could be that you are not geting voltage to the amp in the antenna. This 5V voltage is on the center conductor of the coax. There should be a black plastic sheet between the GPS and the magnesium casing, if not then you may have shorted out the 5V that the antenna needs to operate. if you have a meter check that you have this voltage on the center pin. Your 3v supply is good since the GPS is partially working.