570 Serial

[Six_Shooter]

I bought a 570 earlier this year to use for tuning vehciles, I didn't wnat much of a laptop (obviusly LOL), just enough to run the programs I needed, and the connections.

Well one of the very important connections is the serial port, and it has not worked since I bought it. At the time I wasn't as brave as I am now to attempt to repair my computer problems, I also didn't know this site was around. So I had a computer savvy friend look at it, after I had tried a few things on my own, and he couldn't get it working either.

Now I was searching for a possible solution to this and found THIS THREAD that listed information for a 600E, where the serial port, IR port and modem can not be run at the same time. I know shutting the IR port off was one thing that was attempted.
I also recall changing setting in device manager and BIOS with no change.

I have since bought a T30, and works VERY well for what I need to do, but would still like to get the 570 serial port working, as it would make a great back-up or something I could leave in my vehicle to datalog when ever I'm driving and not worry too much about it.

It has been suggested that a fresh install of Windoze98 SE could cure the problem, but without a CD drive built in and no external drive that will work for pugging into the supported bootable port on the machine, this would be rather difficult, although I do understand there is a way to install the OS from the partition on the drive. (4GB HDD partitioned LOL).

Is there a possibilty that it's a hardware problem, or is there some setting that I can change, that hasn't been tried yet?

I'll entertain any ideas right now, I'd hate to have it just sit there, even though I do have ideas for parts of it.

[rkawakami]

Download a copy of the PC Doctor for DOS:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... IGR-495KW2 (diskette)

or

http://www.kawakami-ca.com/ibm_600x/dgpcdoc.iso (.ISO image file)

for those with CD drives. Create the bootable media, boot the system, select the 570 series (item #3 from the menu), and wait for PC Doctor to finish loading. Once it's ready, select the Diagnostics menu, Serial Ports test. By default, three tests are selected. Try to run those tests by using the arrow keys to move the highlighted bar around or clicking the area under the "COM 1" heading with the trackpoint. If nothing happens, the serial port is disabled via BIOS. In that case, then I think you need this (huge, 29MB) program:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... IGR-4ZFRG3

This is the Thinkpad Configuration Utility. Here's a thread which details some of what needs to be done:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 514#321514

I'm in the process of installing this on one of my 600X systems. The same utility is also for the 570 series. I should be done in a little bit and I'll update this post with the results. What I'm trying to do is get to the ps2.exe file and see if it will enable the serial port and disable the IR. I can't execute the serial port tests in PC Doctor on this system and I think it's been disabled in the BIOS.

Also, you might have noticed that the fourth test in the Serial Port diagnostic is not normally enabled. That's the External Loopback Test. You need a special plug to insert into the serial port for that test. This site has a diagram for constructing a "loopback" plug:

http://www.passmark.com/support/loopback.htm

Basically what it does is to connect the input and output lines of the serial port together so that the diagnostic program can check to see if the port can communicate with the "outside world".

edit: Whew! That seems to have done it. Download and install the 29MB package. When you execute the 7ju501aw.exe program, it unpacks all of the software into their respective disk directories (folders). To actually install the Configuration Utility program, go to the c:\drivers\w9x\utility\ folder and run the setup.exe program.

I selected a custom installation and enabled all three options (Windows, DOS and taskbar). Once installed, launch a command prompt (Start/Run/type 'command' inside the box and click the OK button). You then need to execute the following DOS commands:

cd \drivers\win\utilty <--- NOTE: it is spelled 'utilty' not 'utility'
ps2 ir disable
ps2 sera enable
exit

then re-start the system. If this doesn't work, then there may be a problem with the serial port on the motherboard. Hmm... just realized something... I've been assuming that the program you are using for the vehicle is DOS-based. That may be a wrong assumption since you were talking about re-installing Windows. Anyway, this procedure should disable the IR port and free up the IRQ for the serial port BEFORE Windows starts up. I executed those DOS commands, re-started the system with the PC Doctor for DOS CD and now the serial port tests are working.

[Six_Shooter]

That all seems like great information, but I don't have any drives in this 570 (except for HDD of course), there is no slot for floppy or optical. I would need an IBM external drive enclosure that connects to a special plug on the back of the laptop. I don't have one. If there is a way to do this without going that route, it would be much better in my case.

A friend has one (floppy only), and could borrow it, but would rather not if there is a work around. All programs would have to be less than 1.44MB to work going that route anyway.

The programs I use are Windows based, I haven't used DOS in a VERY long time.

[whizkid]

You can use a network card, or WiFi, or a USB drive (hard disk or flash) to transfer files to your 570.