Thinkpads Forum

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

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.

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

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.

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