Hi all,

I have a tricky problem with a toshiba sattelite a50. I went to use the
modem the other day and I am informed that the port is in use ( error
663 ), so I go to check the ports in device manager and they dont
appear at all. So i check on msinfo32 for the com ports and they dont
appear either. when I try to manually install a com port I get the
message that 1-3 is currently in use. Checked the BIOS and it has no
option for turning on or off any type of port. Lastly I did a clean
install (toshiba recovery image) back to the day it was bought and
still wont show the com ports. Now seems to me the ports are there but
for some reason wont show. Has anyone got any tip or tricks or ideas as
I am currently mightily stumped.


Thanks

If this is a "Winmodem", which it probably is, that is a "virtual" COM
port and it won't show up in device manager. This is (or at least may
be) normal.


regan32 wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I have a tricky problem with a toshiba sattelite a50. I went to use the
> modem the other day and I am informed that the port is in use ( error
> 663 ), so I go to check the ports in device manager and they dont
> appear at all. So i check on msinfo32 for the com ports and they dont
> appear either. when I try to manually install a com port I get the
> message that 1-3 is currently in use. Checked the BIOS and it has no
> option for turning on or off any type of port. Lastly I did a clean
> install (toshiba recovery image) back to the day it was bought and
> still wont show the com ports. Now seems to me the ports are there but
> for some reason wont show. Has anyone got any tip or tricks or ideas as
> I am currently mightily stumped.
>
>
> Thanks
>

Ya the computer does has one physical serial port tho so at least one
instance should be present.




Barry Watzman wrote:
> If this is a "Winmodem", which it probably is, that is a "virtual" COM
> port and it won't show up in device manager. This is (or at least may
> be) normal.
>
>
> regan32 wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I have a tricky problem with a toshiba sattelite a50. I went to use the
> > modem the other day and I am informed that the port is in use ( error
> > 663 ), so I go to check the ports in device manager and they dont
> > appear at all. So i check on msinfo32 for the com ports and they dont
> > appear either. when I try to manually install a com port I get the
> > message that 1-3 is currently in use. Checked the BIOS and it has no
> > option for turning on or off any type of port. Lastly I did a clean
> > install (toshiba recovery image) back to the day it was bought and
> > still wont show the com ports. Now seems to me the ports are there but
> > for some reason wont show. Has anyone got any tip or tricks or ideas as
> > I am currently mightily stumped.
> >
> >
> > Thanks
> >

Alright after trying nearly everything and 3 clean installs with xp
home and xp pro I get the same problem every time. Turns out in device
manager there is a non plug and play peice of hardware called "serial"
which has the yellow exclamation point on it. Tried uninstalling and
re-instaling, update bios and manually adding drivers for it and com
ports. No joy. So im guessing it must be a hardware problem. Does
anyone know what the hardware device is? Can it be replaced or is it
built into the board? Any advice would be great.

Thanks


regan32 wrote:
> Ya the computer does has one physical serial port tho so at least one
> instance should be present.
>
>
>
>
> Barry Watzman wrote:
> > If this is a "Winmodem", which it probably is, that is a "virtual" COM
> > port and it won't show up in device manager. This is (or at least may
> > be) normal.
> >
> >
> > regan32 wrote:
> > > Hi all,
> > >
> > > I have a tricky problem with a toshiba sattelite a50. I went to use the
> > > modem the other day and I am informed that the port is in use ( error
> > > 663 ), so I go to check the ports in device manager and they dont
> > > appear at all. So i check on msinfo32 for the com ports and they dont
> > > appear either. when I try to manually install a com port I get the
> > > message that 1-3 is currently in use. Checked the BIOS and it has no
> > > option for turning on or off any type of port. Lastly I did a clean
> > > install (toshiba recovery image) back to the day it was bought and
> > > still wont show the com ports. Now seems to me the ports are there but
> > > for some reason wont show. Has anyone got any tip or tricks or ideas as
> > > I am currently mightily stumped.
> > >
> > >
> > > Thanks
> > >

The hardware device that you see in device manager is most likely a USB
controller or "root hub", not an RS-232 port.

Where did you get the XP that you installed? The fact that you did a
clean install doesn't mean that you have [all of] the proper drivers for
the laptop ... in fact, you normally wouldn't. You would normally have
to go to the Toshiba web site and get all of the necessary drivers, and
install them (and there could be a dozen or more). Even an XP CD
obtained from Toshiba might not have all of the necessary drivers on it
(however, I would expect that a model specific image-based
reinstallation CD, as opposed to a generic Windows XP CD, would have the
drivers).

Also, go into the BIOS setup and see if any of the laptop's devices are
disabled. That could well be the case.


regan32 wrote:
> Alright after trying nearly everything and 3 clean installs with xp
> home and xp pro I get the same problem every time. Turns out in device
> manager there is a non plug and play peice of hardware called "serial"
> which has the yellow exclamation point on it. Tried uninstalling and
> re-instaling, update bios and manually adding drivers for it and com
> ports. No joy. So im guessing it must be a hardware problem. Does
> anyone know what the hardware device is? Can it be replaced or is it
> built into the board? Any advice would be great.
>
> Thanks
>
>
> regan32 wrote:
>> Ya the computer does has one physical serial port tho so at least one
>> instance should be present.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Barry Watzman wrote:
>>> If this is a "Winmodem", which it probably is, that is a "virtual" COM
>>> port and it won't show up in device manager. This is (or at least may
>>> be) normal.
>>>
>>>
>>> regan32 wrote:
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> I have a tricky problem with a toshiba sattelite a50. I went to use the
>>>> modem the other day and I am informed that the port is in use ( error
>>>> 663 ), so I go to check the ports in device manager and they dont
>>>> appear at all. So i check on msinfo32 for the com ports and they dont
>>>> appear either. when I try to manually install a com port I get the
>>>> message that 1-3 is currently in use. Checked the BIOS and it has no
>>>> option for turning on or off any type of port. Lastly I did a clean
>>>> install (toshiba recovery image) back to the day it was bought and
>>>> still wont show the com ports. Now seems to me the ports are there but
>>>> for some reason wont show. Has anyone got any tip or tricks or ideas as
>>>> I am currently mightily stumped.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Thanks
>>>>
>

The OS's I tried were an image file provided by toshiba for the
computer (which did work in the past) a retail version of xp pro and an
oem version of xp home from my desktop. The device manager does show 3
working usb controlers and root hubs and the usb ports do work with a
hard drive so Im guessing the USB drivers are covered. And even the
updated version of the BIOS doesnt have any reference to configurable
ports, its massively simplistic. Im gonna go buy a pcmia card and see
if that works and write off the idea of the inbuilt modem. Even tho its
very frustrating not knowing whats going on. Thanks for the replies tho
I appreciate the input.


Barry Watzman wrote:
> The hardware device that you see in device manager is most likely a USB
> controller or "root hub", not an RS-232 port.
>
> Where did you get the XP that you installed? The fact that you did a
> clean install doesn't mean that you have [all of] the proper drivers for
> the laptop ... in fact, you normally wouldn't. You would normally have
> to go to the Toshiba web site and get all of the necessary drivers, and
> install them (and there could be a dozen or more). Even an XP CD
> obtained from Toshiba might not have all of the necessary drivers on it
> (however, I would expect that a model specific image-based
> reinstallation CD, as opposed to a generic Windows XP CD, would have the
> drivers).
>
> Also, go into the BIOS setup and see if any of the laptop's devices are
> disabled. That could well be the case.
>
>
> regan32 wrote:
> > Alright after trying nearly everything and 3 clean installs with xp
> > home and xp pro I get the same problem every time. Turns out in device
> > manager there is a non plug and play peice of hardware called "serial"
> > which has the yellow exclamation point on it. Tried uninstalling and
> > re-instaling, update bios and manually adding drivers for it and com
> > ports. No joy. So im guessing it must be a hardware problem. Does
> > anyone know what the hardware device is? Can it be replaced or is it
> > built into the board? Any advice would be great.
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> >
> > regan32 wrote:
> >> Ya the computer does has one physical serial port tho so at least one
> >> instance should be present.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Barry Watzman wrote:
> >>> If this is a "Winmodem", which it probably is, that is a "virtual" COM
> >>> port and it won't show up in device manager. This is (or at least may
> >>> be) normal.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> regan32 wrote:
> >>>> Hi all,
> >>>>
> >>>> I have a tricky problem with a toshiba sattelite a50. I went to use the
> >>>> modem the other day and I am informed that the port is in use ( error
> >>>> 663 ), so I go to check the ports in device manager and they dont
> >>>> appear at all. So i check on msinfo32 for the com ports and they dont
> >>>> appear either. when I try to manually install a com port I get the
> >>>> message that 1-3 is currently in use. Checked the BIOS and it has no
> >>>> option for turning on or off any type of port. Lastly I did a clean
> >>>> install (toshiba recovery image) back to the day it was bought and
> >>>> still wont show the com ports. Now seems to me the ports are there but
> >>>> for some reason wont show. Has anyone got any tip or tricks or ideas as
> >>>> I am currently mightily stumped.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Thanks
> >>>>
> >

"regan32" <regan32@brunet.bn> wrote in message
news:1164594207.941641.197020@l12g2000cwl.googlegr oups.com...
> Alright after trying nearly everything and 3 clean installs with xp
> home and xp pro I get the same problem every time. Turns out in device
> manager there is a non plug and play peice of hardware called "serial"
> which has the yellow exclamation point on it. Tried uninstalling and
> re-instaling, update bios and manually adding drivers for it and com
> ports. No joy. So im guessing it must be a hardware problem. Does
> anyone know what the hardware device is? Can it be replaced or is it
> built into the board? Any advice would be great.
>

That exclamation marked device would concern me. I had one of those on one
PC, that was marked 'Unknown Device'. When I deleted it and rebooted, it
redetected the unknown device and tried (and failed) to find drivers. After
some time, I discovered that this unknown device was the floppy disk drive
which strangely worked perfectly, in spite of having no other entry in
device manager. I was able to delete it and then when it was redetected, I
told it to look for floppy disk drive drivers which it did from the Windows
CD.

You could try deleting this 'serial' port., and then reboot. When the
device is detected, see if you can install it as a COM port pointing it to
the Windows CD for the drivers.

This may be clutching at straws however.