MJ101

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5 years ago

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MJ101

4 Posts

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4463

January 15th, 2019 00:00

serial port overrun

Precision Tower 3630 running Windows 10 64bit Builtin COM1 Serial port works but has overruns on input, some of the characters received are lost (115K baud). Device Manager lists COM1 under C240 LPC controller Driver listed as version 10.0.16299.15 from Microsoft, dated 2006 System claims the driver is up to date Is there a more recent driver, or something to be enabled in BIOS to get COM1 to work properly?
  • speedstep

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    Posted April 6th, 2021 04:00

    Those ports are not designed to run 115200 baud RS232.  If you add RS422 conversions on both ends you might have better luck but serial ports on pc's are designed to run with analog modems 56K max.

    Dell is not going to fix this for a legacy port.

    higher speeds major limitation is the environment, in a noisy environment there will be more corrupt data limiting the speed. Another limitation is the length of the cable between the devices, you may need to add a RS422 repeater or some other device to strengthen the signal.

    https://www.amazon.com/Serial-Communication-Converter-Adapter-Mini-Size/dp/B0196AO1IG

     

  • fireberd

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    Posted January 15th, 2019 03:00

    The Dell downloads show an Intel Serial I/O driver.  Its not clear if this is the hardware device for the RS232C I/O or not, but if it is its a later driver than the default Windows driver.  The 2006 date on the Microsoft driver is a generic date, there are several devices that have similar old dates. e.g. the Microsoft Firewire driver that I use on my recording studio system also has a 2006 date but its the "latest" driver. 

    <ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>

    By the way, the "Workstation" section of the forum is for Precision hardware support.

     

    Inspiron 16 5630 Laptop and WD22TB4 Docking Station
    Self-built desktop for recording studio application
  • Tesla1856

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    Posted January 17th, 2019 22:00

    Try enabling hardware flow-control.

    Check protocol settings match on both ends.

    Use high-quality cables.

    Dell Rockstar

    Microsoft Windows and Apple iOS Developer (Retired)
    - Like many of you, I can appreciate a good game-engine.
    - I answer questions here, but I'm not a Dell employee.
    - Consider giving posts you like a "thumbs-up"
    - Posting models-numbers and software versions speeds trouble-shooting.
    - Click "Mark as Accepted Answer" on any post that answers your question best.

  • Andreas5151

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    Posted April 6th, 2021 04:00

    Hi,

    I have exactly the same problem with my Dell Precision 3630 Tower serial port.
    I also run Windows 10 Enterprise 64bit (1809)
    Dell Support changed the mainboard but this does not help.
    It seems to be a driver problem.

    I installed the actual "Intel-Serial-IO-Driver_RDY6W_WIN_30.100.2020.7_A05.EXE" driver.
    Nevertheless, the serial port shows driver version "21.06.2006, 10.0.17763.1" from Microsoft and not an Intel or Dell driver.

    We bought an active "ProSupport Plus" with the workstation, but after changing the mainboard, the Dell Support blocks further attempts to fix this problem.
    This is not what I understand as professional support.

    Remark: I use the same cable and serial devices at the Dell Workstation what I had used since some years with my old HP 440 Workstation without any problems.

    Best Regards
    Andreas

  • speedstep

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    Posted April 6th, 2021 07:00

    The driver you posted is for specific intel chipsets not a generic serial driver.

    Cannon Point-LP Serial IO SPI Controller

    This package contains the Intel Serial IO driver and is supported on Alienware, Inspiron, Latitude, OptiPlex, Precision, Vostro, and XPS models that run the Windows 10 64-bit operating system.

    https://dl.dell.com/FOLDER05014305M/4/Chipset_Driver_C67R4_WN32_30.100.1727.1_A01_01.EXE

     

    PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_9DAA Serial IO SPI Controller

    PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_9DAB
    PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_9DFB


    PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_A32A  Intel Management Engine Interface SOL
    PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_A32B
    PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_A37B

  • JSz

    2 Intern

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    Posted April 6th, 2021 08:00

    > Those ports are not designed to run 115200 baud RS232.

     

    Baloney.  I had no problem running com ports at 115k  20+ years ago with a 386. 

    Overruns normally happen when some process disables interrupts too long, and it is almost always a software issue.

    One standard way to remedy is to change the trigger levels for the receive and transmit buffers as per below image.  (Win 7)

     

    JSz_0-1617723015077.png

     

    Another possible remedy would be to install a serial port card that has a deeper FIFO than on the onboard serial port [16550 (?) with 16 bytes] like the 16950.

    Chipset: Oxford OxPCIe952.
    Compliant with PCI Express Base Specification, Revision 1.1.
    Built-in 128-byte FIFO buffers.
    UART: 16950.
    Supports data transfer rate up to 230Kb/s.

     






  • mazzinia_

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    Posted April 6th, 2021 08:00

    Not going to agree with this statement.

    Every single pc I always had , had 0 issues going at 115k on serial, including workstations.

    Now if you mean that fujitsu, supermicro, old AST, asus , etc are all wrong in the standard implementation and dell is right, I'm going to not agree

  • speedstep

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    Posted April 6th, 2021 08:00

    115200 is possible but with zero errors is not especially in a noisy environment over long distances.

    Intel AMT Serial-over-LAN (SOL) is something completely different.

    This is also why I recommend RS422

    RS422 interface is used to transmit data at higher speed and for larger distance compared to RS232C. This is possible due to differential mode of transmission. It uses twisted pair cable for transmission CAT5. Hence noise is reduced to great extent.

    https://www.amazon.com/Serial-Converter-Adapter-Supports-Windows/dp/B0195ZD3P4

     

    https://www.amazon.com/USR-TCP232-306-Serial-Ethernet-Device-Server/dp/B07G5P4CPR

     

    If you need flow control and Modbus thats more expensive.

    https://www.icselect.com/vxi-11_modbus_RTU.html

     

     

  • Andreas5151

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    Posted April 6th, 2021 10:00

    @speedstep

    I do not use a long cable, I use a 2 meter (6.56 ft) cable, and as I wrote previously, exactly the same configuration run without problems for years with a HP 440 workstation serial port and Win7 Pro 64.

  • Andreas5151

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    Posted April 6th, 2021 10:00

    @JSz 

    I already played with that driver settings, but it does not help.