T61 with dock, Win7 64-bit - not recognizing com port

[judetf]

I have recently obtained a T61 running Windows 7 64-bit. I need to enable a serial port connection and so I have the laptop in a dock. But I'm running into problems getting it to recognize ... something.

When I first attached the dock I got an unknown device in 'other devices' in Device Manager. The only details are that the location of the device is Port_#0001.Hub_#0008 and the drivers for the device could not be installed. Attempting to update the driver using automatic searching returns no results.

I decided to ignore that but then noticed that Device Manager didn't have a 'ports' section so I tried 'add legacy hardware' in Device Manager. While I was able to add a com port, no matter how I configure it, it still shows as an error. Currently it says "The device cannot start."

I have installed ThinkVantage and am fully up to date on the drivers it allowed me to update.

I have tried enabling/disabling the serial port in the BIOS. Nothing makes any difference.

The dock does work to the extent that I have my network cable plugged in (as well as an external monitor and a USB cable for my iPhone - those all seem to work just fine).

So I'm stuck. It seems that the 'unknown device' must be part of the problem since I didn't have that before I plugged the T61 into the dock, but I don't know how to proceed. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks,
jtf

[RealBlackStuff]

Welcome to the forum.
It may well be that some important drivers are missing (such as the Intel chipset drivers)
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-73684

T61 was never supplied with W7, let alone the 64-bit version.
Also install/run ThinkVantage SystemUpdate (TVSU) V4.0
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-73695
That should get you any other missing stuff.

[judetf]

Thanks much for the response and pointers. I was up to date with ThinkVantage 4 and all available downloads, but not the chipset, which I have now installed.

One problem has been corrected: originally I had an 'unknown device' and that is now, thankfully, gone. (I assume, somehow, that was the dock itself?)

However, I am still unable to create a com port. There was not 'ports' section in Device manager, so I again tried to 'add legacy hardware' and after creating the com port I still get errors.

I have also now tried on two different docks, so that's not the problem. And I've again tried various combos of BIOS settings to enable/disable the serial port.

Any other thoughts on how to activate a com port?

Thanks very much,
jtf

[RealBlackStuff]

T61 was not made for W7. Some came with Vista however, which is very similar to W7.
Try and find a driver from Vista to work under W7.
64-bit might be the problem.
If the BIOS has the COM1-port activated, running SystemUpdate should bring in the driver.
If not, try it manually.

[judetf]

Solved!

I'm not sure if it was there all along and I missed it, or if the BIOS or chipset update added it, but the BIOS actually had a setting to enable legacy devices on the dock, and that had been set as disabled. We are up and running.

Many thanks for the pointers and encouragement.
jtf