with only one serial port, how many com ports are available?

[carolinaboy]

brand new gateway running xp. it has only one serial port on the back. the modem is set to com3, which obviously means com1 is also not available. however, i'm trying to hook up a palm pilot which requires com2. there is no com2 in device manager. tried to add it through add new hardware, but no luck. because i have only one serial port on the back, does that mean i only have access to either com1/3 or com2/4, but not both? is my only option to install a pci serial port? thanks

 

[HappyPuppy]

Look in the BIOS to see if COM 2/4 has been disabled. Might be the problem.

 

[carolinaboy]

the bios doesn't indicate anything disabled in the peripheral configuration. there is no listing for serial b, only serial a, which is really making me think that i have a useless serial port on the back of my machine, unless of course i remove the modem and use a NIC to go online. any other ideas? thanks for the reply, btw.

 

[piasabird]

USB MODEM??

 

[GregMal]

Any modern BIOS allows you to configure the existing hardware Com port
to your liking. Go into the BIOS and highlight the Com port. Then use
page up/down to look at all of the options. Make sure you pick one that
doesn't conflict with the modem settings. Then save your changes.
when you boot into windows it should automatically detect it and
set it up. Look at the device manager to check.........
Greg