Rs232 serial PCI or USB

330d

My PC does not have a serial rs232 port so what is the best way to get one? I have done some research and found 2 ways, a rs232 serial pci card or a usb converter.

But my computer is windows 7, i found plenty of both items but im not sure if the drivers are compatible with windows 7.

Can anyone help me please?

fwor

If you need a long-term, permanent solution, I'd go for a PCI card.

I'd recommend buying from a UK supplier rather than from HK/China on Ebay, as it will be easier to check if Win7 drivers are included, and easier to send back if they don't work!

epninety

If you decide to go USB, try to find one which uses the FTDI chips. I use a lot of usb-serial adapters for all sorts of work (electronics designer) and the FTDI ones give the least trouble of any I've tried. I confess I've not tried then in Win7, but they have win7 drivers available on their website. I use them as adapters, and have designed them in to products.

The only problem is figuring out which adapters on sale have which chipset. Depends what you want to do with them, but I have used quite a few of the cheapo 'bare-board' adapters from ebay. You can usually see from the photo which chip they have used. I have six of them on my test bench at the moment! Just as an example ebay 220579625604 is the same as the ones I usually use, but you can search for others with the same manufacturers chip.

BTW, beware if you want to plug in a device which sends data all the time, like a GPS. When you plug in the usb to the pc, Windows often decides it is a mouse and does bizarre things. Plug the dongle into the PC, then plug the serial cable into the dongle, and it wont happen.

bondy01

I use a cheapo Chinese USB serial adapter on my W7 laptop and find it works fine. Only issue I have is some software won't auto detect the port and needs to see it as com1 so I have to change it under device manager. Device installed ok using the supplied cd as far as I can remember. Got mine from CPC.

snowqueen555

I have an old psion and bought several usb adaptors but none would work with it. I ended up transcribing all the information which was very time consuming. I hope you find a solution

330d

Thanks guys,

I have a rs232 serial pci card but its only compatible with xp. Does anyone know whether it will work in xp mode on microsoft virtual pc?

Hammyman

Your PCI one should work with Win7.

For USB, the only one that I've found will work with anything is a Keyspan but at £40, they're not cheap.

330d

There are no drivers available for windows 7 for the pci. http://www.mri.co.uk/inputoutput/drivers/pci_rs232.php

snowqueen555

I believe win7 has some built in drivers to make progs work with older software, but I can't guarantee it will work.

Psiwin works fine with win7, and psiwin was made in the 90's

330d

Ok, any ideas to what drivers will work for my pci card and windows 7?

bondy01

Hammyman wrote: »

Your PCI one should work with Win7.

For USB, the only one that I've found will work with anything is a Keyspan but at £40, they're not cheap.

Crikey , my USB adapter was £6.99 and I thought that was expensive. Part no. CS1452214 on CPC/Farnell.