Upgraded to WinXP from Win98 ... Com resource conflict

K

klytu

Just upgraded from Windows 98 to Windows XP Professional SP2. Hardware
is old but fully functional:

400 Mhz Pentium II, 300MB RAM, Award BIOS (Updated to 2003), ESS 1969
Sound Card, ATI Radeon 7000 64MB AGP video card, Linksys LNE100TX
Network Card, AAA 56K PCI Voice/Fax/Data Modem

After the upgrade a resource conflict occurred (never a problem in
Windows 98) which prevented my modem from working. COM 2, which the
modem uses, showed a yellow exclamation mark; it was assigned the same
resources that were assigned to COM 4. COM 4 was assigned to my
Cyberpower UPS which was connected to an open serial port. Tried
uninstalling and reinstalling the modem, but upon reinstalling plug and
play did not detect the modem. Had to choose modem manually from a list
but COM 2 was not now listed as available. After a couple of hours of
MUCH trial and error, the only workaround I could come up with was to
the following in order: I had uninstall the modem, disconnect the UPS
from the serial port, uninstall COM 2, reboot, reinstall COM 2,
reinstall modem, then disable COM 1 and COM 4 - neither of which had
any devices connected to them!

What was really bizarre was that if I tried to resolve the resource
conflict manually, Windows XP would not allow me to change my resource
configuration even when I would select one that presented no conflicts.
Other weirdness that occurred on my way to finding the workaround above
was that whenever I would seem to achieve a resource conflict-free
setup (by disabling conflicting devices in Device Manager), upon reboot
Windows XP would reassign COM 2 so that it was conflicting with a port
it didn't conflict with before. For example, at one point I arrived at
a situation where I had COM 1 installed (as noted above nothing is
attached to it), modem on COM 2, UPS on COM 4; COM 2 showed yellow
exclam and indicated it was using same resources as COM 1; disabled COM
1; modem now worked fine; rebooted; after reboot COM 2 now had a yellow
exclam indicating it was using same resources/interrupt as COM 4 and
modem would not work.

I hope the situation and problem I presented is clear. What the heck is
going on? I can live with this setup for now because the UPS backup
software is not critical and I rarely use the modem anymore. I have DSL
for internet and connect to my DSL modem via the network card and
basically use the modem for occassionally sending and receiving faxes.
But it is really irritating and frustrating that ALL hardware worked
before the upgrade and that now I had to go through contortions to get
partial functionality. Any help or ideas appreciated!
 
K

klytu

klytu said:
Just upgraded from Windows 98 to Windows XP Professional SP2. Hardware
is old but fully functional:

400 Mhz Pentium II, 300MB RAM, Award BIOS (Updated to 2003), ESS 1969
Sound Card, ATI Radeon 7000 64MB AGP video card, Linksys LNE100TX
Network Card, AAA 56K PCI Voice/Fax/Data Modem

After the upgrade a resource conflict occurred (never a problem in
Windows 98) which prevented my modem from working. COM 2, which the
modem uses, showed a yellow exclamation mark; it was assigned the same
resources that were assigned to COM 4. COM 4 was assigned to my
Cyberpower UPS which was connected to an open serial port. Tried
uninstalling and reinstalling the modem, but upon reinstalling plug and
play did not detect the modem. Had to choose modem manually from a list
but COM 2 was not now listed as available. After a couple of hours of
MUCH trial and error, the only workaround I could come up with was to
the following in order: I had uninstall the modem, disconnect the UPS
from the serial port, uninstall COM 2, reboot, reinstall COM 2,
reinstall modem, then disable COM 1 and COM 4 - neither of which had
any devices connected to them!

What was really bizarre was that if I tried to resolve the resource
conflict manually, Windows XP would not allow me to change my resource
configuration even when I would select one that presented no conflicts.
Other weirdness that occurred on my way to finding the workaround above
was that whenever I would seem to achieve a resource conflict-free
setup (by disabling conflicting devices in Device Manager), upon reboot
Windows XP would reassign COM 2 so that it was conflicting with a port
it didn't conflict with before. For example, at one point I arrived at
a situation where I had COM 1 installed (as noted above nothing is
attached to it), modem on COM 2, UPS on COM 4; COM 2 showed yellow
exclam and indicated it was using same resources as COM 1; disabled COM
1; modem now worked fine; rebooted; after reboot COM 2 now had a yellow
exclam indicating it was using same resources/interrupt as COM 4 and
modem would not work.

I hope the situation and problem I presented is clear. What the heck is
going on? I can live with this setup for now because the UPS backup
software is not critical and I rarely use the modem anymore. I have DSL
for internet and connect to my DSL modem via the network card and
basically use the modem for occassionally sending and receiving faxes.
But it is really irritating and frustrating that ALL hardware worked
before the upgrade and that now I had to go through contortions to get
partial functionality. Any help or ideas appreciated!

Solved problem by disabling Windows XP's ACPI. All hardware now
functions properly with no resource conflicts. For those who find this
post, have similar problems and want to try this, do a search for
"Windows XP ACPI". You'll find a number of posts on how to disable the
ACPI in XP. I used the following procedure:

1. Right click "My Computer", click "Properties", select the "Hardware"
Tab, then click "Device Manager".
2. Click the + symbol in front of "Computer" and double-click "Advanced
Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC"
3. Select the "Driver" tab and click "Update Driver"
4. Select "No, not this time" at the "Welcome to the Hardware Update
WIzard" box, Choose "Install from a list or specified location", then
"Don't search, I will choose the driver to install"
5. Select "Standard PC", then click next and follow the instructions.
6. Windows XP rebooted into what appeared to be safe mode, reinstalled
all hardware, and reassigned all resources. If prompted to install
drivers, I let Windows search and install automatically and clicked
next. At the end of the process, Windows advised me to reboot again.
7. After rebooting, I no longer have any resource conflict issues and
my system is fully functional. The only thing I had to do was reset my
screen resolution.

Some folks warn that FOLLOWING THE STEPS ABOVE MIGHT LEAVE YOUR SYSTEM
UNBOOTABLE. My research indicates this is not true and that there is
little risk that this procedure will harm your system, but the folks
who posted it probably have a lot more experience than I do with this
stuff and I thought it would be irresponsible not to mention the
warning.
 

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