I have the 7nif2 board
the bios lists 2 serial ports but I physically have only one. An adapter that plugs into the MB. How can I tell for sure which com port this is. KnoppMyth see's 2 com ports on boot up.

Reason for asking I am trying to get an IR blaster working and not having any luck I would like to at least know I am configuring it for the correct com port.

You don't, by any chance, still have an rs-232 serial port modem still hanging around, do you?

-brendan

No, I have disabled the onboard modem in the bios.

The chipset supports two. And Chaintech's tech specs say that there are two UARTS and two headers... http://www.chaintechusa.com/tw/eng/product_spec.asp?MPSNo=13&PISNo=15
Under Super I/O Controller - "Two UARTs support serial ports and IR function (up to 115.2Kbps) for HPSIR and ASKIR "
Under other features - "Two 5x2 pin Serial ports with housing (COM1 & COM2)"
I DL'ed the PDF manual from the same website and right there on page 4 the picture shows the headers plain as day. You might want to check your print copy since it's pictures should be a bit clearer...

No, what I meant is that with an external modem, it should be quite simple to figure out what device the external serial port is mapping to.

-brendan

Right, sorry!

No external modem.
I will play with it more this weekend and see how it goes.

You could always hook a piece of wire from pin2 on one of the ports to pin3 on the other. Then in one terminal type cat /dev/ttyS0 and in another type cat /dev/ttyS1 and then in a third teminal type "echo hello from ttyS0 > /dev/ttyS0" and then "echo hello from ttyS1 > /dev/ttyS1". Only one of these messages will get through. Pin 3 is the transmit pin so if you see the "hello from ttyS1" message in the "cat /dev/ttyS0" window then /dev/ttyS1 is the port with the wire connected to pin 3. If you see the "hello from ttyS0" message in the "cat /dev/ttyS1" window then /dev/ttyS0 is the port with the wire connected to pin 3.

If you have 25 pin RS-232 connectors pin 2 is the transmit pin.

[EDIT]
Oops: didn't read your message correctly (thought you were trying to work out which port was which). but you could use the same logic and connect to a serial port of another computer. You could just use a normal null modem cable for this.

How did something as simple as looking at the labelled diagrams get ignored? They don't take an advanced degree in Electrical Engineering from MIT to read... The connection from the header labelled "COM1" will become /dev/tty0, /dev/ttyS0, or a couple other names all numbered '0', and the one labelled "COM2" becomes /dev/tty1, /dev/ttyS1, ...

Even without that, if only one serial port is expressed in the back panel connector sthe odds are about 100 to 1 that it's COM1.

I agree tjc, but it's much more fun working it out with a twist tie off the top of a loaf of bread than looking at the manual.

Alright I deserve that. lol

In my own defence it is not a back panel connector it is on a ribbon cable (Ok a weak defence) And being a male would make it very difficult to for me to read manuals or stop my car and ask for directions.

Back to trying to get my ir blaster working, thanks guys

Craig

Don't know how good Chaintech is about their silkscreen labelling, but at least half the motherboards I've seen in the last 25 years actually identify the headers right on the MoBo. In which case all you'd have to do is read the road signs...

I had looked not very clear at all. but it was in the manual so no excuse.

Okay

So what about if I have 2x pvr 250 cards
Would the ir ports on them take up com1 and 2
Pushing the motherboard ports to 3 and 4??

I found one brief reference to this but when I look I only have a ttyS0 and 1

So I am somewhat confused

I have 2 PVR250's and using a IRBlaster. I only have one onboard serial port which I set to Com2 in the bios. I could have used 1 and it wouldn't have mattered, I just used 2.
I dont see any "moving" or conflicts with me 250's and the IR Blaster. I am using the Actisys 200L. I had to use the myth docs to totally remove LIRC and then reinstall it manually. The out of the box didn't want to work. I have a recent post with more details.

_________________
ASUS A7N266 Micro-ATX Motherboard
Athlon 2200 processor
512K Kingston PC2100 Memory
MicroAtx Case
2 PVR250's w/remote
eVGA e-GeForce mx4000 (64 Ram with Tv/Out (Svideo))
Lite-on DVD cd-rw combo
120 GB Western Digital