Dimension E520 and serial card upgrade

Without any luck, I have tried both a serial-to-USB and native PCI
serial card (2 USB and 1 serial port) for use of hooking up a personal
weather station that has female serial connector. I bought both items
at Fry's Electronics and both times the drivers seem to be unsupported
with XP (with the exception of the USB drivers on the PCI card). Both
items claim to be XP compatible, but here I am....

A little reading indicates that the mobo has a PCI 2.3 bus that has
3.3V power. I am not sure of the technical specs of card I have, but
it did not work. I tried all afternoon yesterday looking at vendor
website, dell support, dell forums, etc...just cannot get it to work.

So, the main question is what PCI-based serial card have any of you
successfully added that works? Like I said, I have a personal weather
station that I would like to connect and also a GPS unit that is also
serial.

Thanks!

=CCC=

SIIG is the only reputable brand I know capable of providing parallel and/or
serial PCI cards. I have not used their serial cards, but I did install one of
their parallel cards recently in a newish Dell to support an Epson printer with
drivers incapable of working correctly with a parallel-to-USB adapter cable.

.... Ben Myers

On Sun, 27 Jul 2008 12:13:06 -0700 (PDT), ClanCampbellChandler
<> wrote:

>Without any luck, I have tried both a serial-to-USB and native PCI
>serial card (2 USB and 1 serial port) for use of hooking up a personal
>weather station that has female serial connector. I bought both items
>at Fry's Electronics and both times the drivers seem to be unsupported
>with XP (with the exception of the USB drivers on the PCI card). Both
>items claim to be XP compatible, but here I am....
>
>A little reading indicates that the mobo has a PCI 2.3 bus that has
>3.3V power. I am not sure of the technical specs of card I have, but
>it did not work. I tried all afternoon yesterday looking at vendor
>website, dell support, dell forums, etc...just cannot get it to work.
>
>So, the main question is what PCI-based serial card have any of you
>successfully added that works? Like I said, I have a personal weather
>station that I would like to connect and also a GPS unit that is also
>serial.
>
>Thanks!
>
>=CCC=

i have used LAVA before.
they specialize in all these type of cards, for a long time.
they are based in canada.
many different types to choose from.

http://www.lavalink.com/shop/us/


Ben Myers wrote:
> SIIG is the only reputable brand I know capable of providing parallel and/or
> serial PCI cards. I have not used their serial cards, but I did install one of
> their parallel cards recently in a newish Dell to support an Epson printer with
> drivers incapable of working correctly with a parallel-to-USB adapter cable.
>
> ... Ben Myers
>
> On Sun, 27 Jul 2008 12:13:06 -0700 (PDT), ClanCampbellChandler
> <> wrote:
>
>> Without any luck, I have tried both a serial-to-USB and native PCI
>> serial card (2 USB and 1 serial port) for use of hooking up a personal
>> weather station that has female serial connector. I bought both items
>> at Fry's Electronics and both times the drivers seem to be unsupported
>> with XP (with the exception of the USB drivers on the PCI card). Both
>> items claim to be XP compatible, but here I am....
>>
>> A little reading indicates that the mobo has a PCI 2.3 bus that has
>> 3.3V power. I am not sure of the technical specs of card I have, but
>> it did not work. I tried all afternoon yesterday looking at vendor
>> website, dell support, dell forums, etc...just cannot get it to work.
>>
>> So, the main question is what PCI-based serial card have any of you
>> successfully added that works? Like I said, I have a personal weather
>> station that I would like to connect and also a GPS unit that is also
>> serial.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> =CCC=

Hi!

>i have used LAVA before.

....who should be plenty reputable enough, considering that they were
designing cards in the Microchannel days.

I don't know who is making them, but StarTech(.com) has some PCI serial and
parallel port cards available. I have used their serial cards (which are
NetMos/MosChip based) with good results under Windows XP.

William