Cannot install IR modem

[Noël Burgess]

Trying to setup communication between a SonyEricsson T610 mobile phone and
my Toshiba Satellite 1410 with WinXP SP1. The IR scanner cannot see the
phone and I learnt from a Google search that the problem is probably that
the PC is assigning the wrong COM-port.
If I try to install the IR modem manually, I get as far as the "Assign port"
page in the wizard and come to a full stop, because there are no ports to
assign.
What do I have to do?

 

[*Vanguard*]

"Noël Burgess" said in news:[email protected]:

Trying to setup communication between a SonyEricsson T610 mobile
phone and my Toshiba Satellite 1410 with WinXP SP1. The IR scanner
cannot see the phone and I learnt from a Google search that the
problem is probably that the PC is assigning the wrong COM-port.
If I try to install the IR modem manually, I get as far as the
"Assign port" page in the wizard and come to a full stop, because
there are no ports to assign.
What do I have to do?

Don't know the specifics for your laptop. In the past, when I
investigated using IR for wireless connections, its use would usurp one
of the serial ports. So if you have COM1 assigned to the modem (for the
telco connection), you will have to disable COM2 so the IR controller
can usurp it. That's my guess.

 

[Noël Burgess]

Thanks, Vanguard. How do you suggest I do that? I have no modem installed
and there are no references to COM-ports anywhere in device manager or
sysinfo.

 

[*Vanguard*]

"Noël Burgess" said in news:%23em%[email protected]:

Thanks, Vanguard. How do you suggest I do that? I have no modem
installed and there are no references to COM-ports anywhere in device
manager or sysinfo.

Last I recall, you had to disable one of the COM ports, probably COM2,
in the BIOS (because that's also where you enable the IR mode used on
that usurped COM port).

 

[Noël Burgess]

No COM-ports in BIOS, either!

"Noël Burgess" said in news:%23em%[email protected]:

Last I recall, you had to disable one of the COM ports, probably COM2,
in the BIOS (because that's also where you enable the IR mode used on
that usurped COM port).

 

[*Vanguard*]

"Noël Burgess" said in news:uK6sR%[email protected]:

No COM-ports in BIOS, either!

i picked your product from http://snipurl.com/5zzn. You didn't mention
which submodel so I just picked the first Satellite 1410 in the list,
then filtered on on "User Guide/Addendum". The last one listed is the
manual. I used PKZip to extract the files (rather than bother to
"install" the guide) and opened the .pdf file. Other than a couple
definitions that mention "BIOS", this manual is worthless regarding the
hardware. They waste lots of pages telling you how to use Windows
rather than the laptop. Yeah, that's intelligence. NOT!

I was going to see how they described configuring the serial ports.
Can't. You're on your own. Maybe another Toshiba victim can help you.
Maybe you got a better manual than the one Toshiba offers for download.
If you know your BIOS brand and version, you might find some info at
their web site regarding the various settings in it.

 

[Noël Burgess]

Thanks again Vanguard for all your trouble.
I think we're barking up the wrong tree. Varying the search strings in my
googling has revealed that this "no com ports" issue is a common experience,
and points to there being another underlying problem. If all is as it should
be, then XP will create any virtual com ports required for the device in
question. A notebook built for XP will probably not have *any* physical com
ports, which is why they don't appear in BIOS.
So, I have to find out what the underlying problem is.
For what it's worth, trial and error taught me that it's the ESC-key on boot
that gives access to BIOS on this Tosh. The manual says nothing, as you
found out. I'd tried DEL, F8, F1, F2 and CTRL first. How to waste half an
hour without really trying!