PCMCIA-232/2 Hardware Resource Conflict

[johnsoja]

I'm trying to install a NI PCMCIA-232/2 serial adapter in a Dell Latitude E6510 laptop.  The laptop is running Windows XP Pro SP3.  I've installed NI Serial 3.5.  The laptop scans for new hardware and locates the device, but gives the following error with yellow exclamation mark "This device cannot find enough free resources that it can use (Code 12)". 

I have tried everything including older and newer versions of the NI Serial driver software (3.4, 3.7).  I've upgraded the bios in the laptop from A06 to A09.  I've disable every Hardware peripheral I can find both in XP Device Manager as well as in the System Bios including : 1394 adapters, Com ports, LPT ports, etc., etc. and XP still reports the resource issue.  The automatic settings its trying to use are I/O Ranges of 02F8-02FF and 02E8-02EF, but I've also attempted to set manual settings of every included Basic configuration allowable with no success. 

Any help is appreciated.

[Kyle_M]

John,

Thank you very much for the detailed desctiption of the issue and the detailed troubleshooting steps. Im currently looking into this, as code 12 points to very low level issues. We may have to manually set some resources for the card. 

Do you by chance have another computer you could use/borrow to try the card on real quick to verify functionality?

Regards,

Kyle Mozdzyn

Applications Engineering

National Instruments 

[johnsoja]

Per your request, I successfully tested the card in another laptop.  It worked immediately after installation.  System successfully installed on is a Dell Latitude D630 with Windows XP Pro SP3.  System installed the two ports at Com 5 and Com6 using the I/O Range 02F8-02FF, IRQ 07 and 02E8-02EF, IRQ 07.

[Kyle_M]

Johnsoja,

Ive done some research, and there seems to be similar issues with many PCMCIA cards on this specific model of laptop.

It seems that the chipset on the E6510 and E6410 cant allocate IO Addresses below a certain point to PCMCIA cards. 

There may be a solution here:

http://forums.ni.com/t5/Multifunction-DAQ/Error-200284-with-DAQCard-6024E-on-Dell-Latitude-E5510-und...

If that doesn't work, you may be able to contact dell to see if they can show you how to get around the automatic allocation of resources.

Using another computer or trying to use a USB-R232 device may be a better option. 

If these steps don't work, please PM me your contact information so we can discuss this further. 

Regards,

Kyle Mozdzyn

Applications Engineering

National Instruments

[johnsoja]

I've given up on making the card work in the original laptop and moved to another laptop. 

I do have an one additional question about the PCMCIA RS-232 card.  Is the baud rate programmable to non-standard baud rates?  In other words, in my .vi through the VISA resource settings, can I program the card to run at 500,000bps or does it only run standard baud rates like 460,800?

[Kyle_M]

John,

I believe the PCMCIA cards are standard baud rates only. Our PCI cards, however, can set any baud rate. 

Regards,

Kyle Mozdzyn

Applications Engineering

National Instruments