CF-29 COM Port help

[farmtrain]

Hey all,

I recently purchased a rebuilt CF29 (toughbook) from a private party. I purchased it for all of my programming needs (ex. CPS, RSS, WeCan, ect.). I sat down tonight to do some updating of my MTS2000, and I cannot connect to the radio. I am only able to select COM3 as the port to use in the CPS. I contacted the seller, and he suggested turning the modem off in the BIOS. When I did, I am no longer able to see COM3 in the CPS.

The CPS is giving me the error message "Unable to communicate with device" (yes it is turned on and connected to the RS232 port)

In windows device manager, for the Ports section, it only shows a printer port LPT1. I tried adding another port and it did not work.

In the interest of not seeing how tough the Toughbook really is, I am turning to the RR faithful for help.


TB Specs
CF-29
Touchscreen
Waterproof backlit keyboard
1.6 intel
1GB ram
Win XP SP2


Thanks!!

 

[datainmotion]

For reference - on the CF-29, the 9-pin serial onboard shoud appear by default as COM 1. COM 2 wouldn't show unless docked (I think) and COM 3 was GPS (if equipped). Obviously, port names can be manipulated, so no guarantee on what COM 3 really is.

Have you checked the BIOS (accessible via the F2 button at the Panasonic screen during boot)? CF-29s COM ports can be enabled/disabled in BIOS, which would cause them to not work or show up in Dev Mgr. If you find it disabled in BIOS, make to to set it to "Auto" to avoid any potential conflicts. If all else fails, I'd reset the BIOS settings to "Default" and reboot.