HaHa! Finally found fix for that blasted "Port already open" error!

[vi edit]

Just thought I'd post this because it plagued me on about four different systems that I have to support.

If you aren't familiar with the error, you get it when a modem fails to work. You go into the control panel applet and try to do a diagnostics on the modem. An error box will pop up and say "port already open" or "port already in use". Swapping slots/ports/IRQ's/drivers/ect had proved to be ineffective in the past.

Finally the other day I found out a solution that worked! Delete all com ports out of device manager, reboot the machine, go into the bios and then set the "Plug and Play BIOS" option to "NO". Now reboot the machine, it will detect the ports, and will detect the modem. Once the drivers have been reinstalled, go back and try to do a diagnostics on the modem. It will work now!

Case closed

 

[Usul]

Good one.

Works with internal modems virtual com ports too?

THX

 

[randypj]

Josh,

Aw....you shoulda said somethin'

I used to fight that like mad with my POS NewComm internals. I just always planned on deleting all the comm ports. Took me two weeks to figure out the first one though.
--Randy

 

[Jeff7]

Heck, even though I've got a "PnP" OS - Windows95 (That's why I have PnP in quotes )
I still always have PnP OS in BIOS set to NO. I find that BIOS often does a much better job of assigning IRQ's than Windows. It doesn't usually assign conflicting IRQ's - something Windows does every chance it gets.