COM Port Identification on Windows XP

Hello

If you are reading this, you are probably wanting to upload a file to your receiver and you are now faced with not knowing or you are not sure which COM Port to set you loader up for.

Well my friends, this is an easy issue to resolve.

How to Identify your COM Port on Windows XP machine

Here is what to do:

1) Click on 'My Computer'

2) Select 'Control Panel'

3) Click on 'System'

4) Click on the 'Hardware Tab'

5) Select 'Device Manager'

6) Scroll down the list to 'Ports' (COM and LPT)

7) Double click on 'Ports'

This will then display a list, the one you are interested in is marked/identified as Communications Port and the PORT number will be in brackets, example:

Communications Port (COM1)

Now you know.

Set you 'Loader' to the required COM Port and you'll be well on your way, as far as the Speed Setting goes (actually the flow rate), should you have the option to set this, enter a value in your 'Loader' of 115200

Additional background information:

The serial port is an I/O (Input/Output) device. An I/O device is just a way to get data into and out of a computer. There are many types of I/O devices such as serial ports, parallel ports, disk drive controllers, ethernet boards, universal serial buses, etc. Most PC's have one or two serial ports. Each has a 9-pin connector (sometimes 25-pin) (pic.1) on the back of the computer. Computer programs can send data (bytes) to the transmit pin (output) and receive bytes from the receive pin (input). The other pins are for control purposes and ground.

The serial port is much more than just a connector. It converts the data from parallel to serial and changes the electrical representation of the data. Inside the computer, data bits flow in parallel (using many wires at the same time). Serial flow is a stream of bits over a single wire (such as on the transmit or receive pin of the serial connector). For the serial port to create such a flow, it must convert data from parallel (inside the computer) to serial on the transmit pin (and conversely).

Creative Genius
Last Updated March 01, 2008