Missing Serial Interface

This section contains information that applies to Windows and Linux, not Windows on ARM.

Problem:

Connection Expert does not detect all the COM ports that are present on your PC.

When you add, you should see serial instrument selections for each available serial port – for example, Serial instrument on ASRL3 for COM3. If you do not see a selection for a particular port, this may be because the Discovery Service has not detected that port.

Probable Cause:

There may be a configuration problem in Windows that is causing ports to be hidden.

Suggested Steps:

1. Go to Windows Device Manager; open the Ports (COM & LPT) section.
   
   
2. If Device Manager lists two identical serial ports, such as two instances of COM1, this will cause Connection Expert to be unable to access that serial port.
   
   
3. In Device Manager, uninstall any duplicate ports.
   
   
4. In Device Manager, scan for hardware changes ( Action > Scan for hardware changes).
   
   
5. Exit Device Manager and restart your PC.

More Information:

Some serial ports displayed in Connection Expert may actually be mapped to modems or other devices in Windows, and in that case you cannot successfully add instruments to those ports. If you send the *IDN? command to this instrument and it returns "*IDN?", you may have added the instrument to a modem port. Remove it and add it to the RS-232 port it is actually connected to.