RS232 port and Emulators

[JMarine0811]

Working on old HP laptop to setup 3300 MXE's and MXEIII before taking it into the field. We were not approved new laptops through the company...my usual Windows XP, with all of my Mitel stuff had a hard drive crash. Could not recover it. Might have to get an image from someone higher up in the company if all else fails. BUT, I figured I would install Windows 7 on it since I successfully upgraded 6 other Mitel machines with the latest 13.xxxx software from my desktop. Of course those upgrades are different done remotely.

SecureCRT, PuTTY, HyperTerminal... serial to serial works as it should on computer with Windows 7, 64 bit and serial port. Same cannot be said for Windows 7 32bit laptop when you connect with the USB adaptor.

I connect the USB to the laptop, start either emulator and I can see everything as it should, boot process and all. I cannot input anything from the keys. Can't stop the boot (space X3). This presents a problem and is added to my list of headaches I have ran into during the various occasions of setting these things up the past couple years, it is always something different.

I am not going to lug around a desktop with me to the field, so it looks like I might have to keep a USB stick with me to install all the tools I need at each location when I do installs or upgrades to these systems. I am unsure if this pertains to the newer desktops, I'll assume it does since many have jettisoned the serial port and gone to strictly USB ports.

I have looked online and it seems common with Cisco servers as well, as a matter of fact one of the guys had me plug in and the same thing happened. I downloaded one of the suggested Prolific PL2303 drivers, didn't work. I am about to leave work finally, will work on it tomorrow and see if I can come up with something else or if someone submits something that gets it going.

Thanks in advanced.

 

[Northeaster01]

I had that happen with secure CRT on new Windows 7 laptop.(after using Procomm Plus for years on XP laptop) Played around a bit with options under session options, serial - and when i unchecked all 3 boxes under flow control - I think rts/ cts is on by default- I could then use space bar to stop boot.

Have since used it to stop boot process, change boot paramaters, and do a manual upgrade sucessfully.

 

[Northeaster01]

sorry- that was with a usb t oserical adapter - prolific I think - anyway Device manager shows it usually grabs com4 or com 5.

 

[JMarine0811]

Good to go, I will try this. Thanks.

 

[JMarine0811]

No Go... going to try on a newer computer.

 

[wireman50]

Beware any adapter that uses a FTDI chip as the rip off ones were recently rendered unusable by FTDI releasing an update that killed them dead. they have since withdrawn this but its easy to be caught as the chinese ripoffs are many and varied. Goodle ftdi upgrade kills chip for more info.

 

[JMarine0811]

UPDATE:

Thanks for the help everyone. I just ended up ordering a new one from Amazon. TRENDnet TU-S9. Sells for about $9.00. Load in drivers from supplied disk, plugged in to port 5 on my laptop, works great. I tried port 4 at first, blasted me with gibberish... seems to like port 5.

Have a nice day.