[time-nuts] USB problems and solutions - Some what Off Topic

Brent Gordon time-nuts at adobe-labs.com
Fri May 29 18:56:22 EDT 2015


Lately, I've been seeing blue screens that I think are caused by my 
serial-USB adapters.  Because I haven't updated by serial drivers since 
before the driver update fiasco a while back, my feeling is that this 
was caused by some other update.

Regarding the COM ports, here is a article on how to see all devices, 
past or present:
<http://www.techrepublic.com/article/viewing-non-present-devices-in-windows-xps-device-manager/>

Although it is written for WinXP, it also works on Win7.  I assume it 
will work on Vista.  Once you see the old devices you can remove them, 
one at a time.

As for making the assignments static, that only works with some 
adapters.  I think it depends on if an adapter reports a serial number. 
  You can manually change the assignment for a port.
1.  Open Device Manager.
2.  Double-click on the port you want to change.
3.  Select the Port Settings tab.
4.  Click the Advanced... button.
5.  Change the port number.

Windows will complain that the port is already in use.  Ignore the 
warning; just unplug and replug the device into the same USB port.  It 
will now run with the new assignment.

Brent

On 5/29/2015 1:17 PM, Cash Olsen wrote:
> I have been plagued with hard crashes of the computer when plugging in and
> unplugging USB devices. I have generally determined that some of the USB to
> serial devices are the worst offenders. I am also suspicious of some of the
> hubs. I wander if even the operating system is partly to blame.
>
> I'm using Windows Vista, and have several different USB to serial adapters.
> Most are Silicon Labs and Prolific. I thought I had the problem resolved
> with Prolific by over-riding the driver and installing an earlier version
> but Windows may have updated the driver, that seems to be a common problem.
>
> I'm coming to time-nuts because I remember that at least one member had a
> very large number of adapters on one computer, so I'm hoping to find some
> help. I don't generally seem to have trouble with other USB devices, just
> the serial adapters.
>
> One further issue, the COM ports are marked in use from 3 to 50+ and I'm
> only using at any one time 3 or 4. Can I clean up the assignments and can I
> make the assignments static after connect and reconnect or restarting the
> computer?
>


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