john banks

Now got a Thinkpad 380Z to replace the 380XD on which the parallel port seemed to fail. It came with a completely duff battery that could not recharge. Think that will attract some bad ebay feedback. "No warranty on battery"... no battery more like!

On the 380Z I can get the serial port working with Win 95 but not with Win 2K!

I have disabled devices that could conflict (although there are no conflicts listed).

I have removed the serial port from the list, but it does not autodetect again.

It reports error code 29 about the firmware being disabled. When I try to reenable it says the driver is wrong but then that one is not required.

I have reset the CMOS, can't find a BIOS config on bootup that goes into this much detail - seems that the Thinkpads are configured with the Thinkpad utility which I am using.

Suggestions?

john banks

Very odd!!

Enabled the device manually and just gave it some resources. Still didn't work, but then accepted automatic configuration, and now it appears to work. How utterly strange. Almost like women these PCs

sti555

john banks

The crazy thing is that to use Delta Dash from a reboot I have to go into the device manager and change the COM port settings to "use automatic settings" in resources each time. It works from a hibernate, but doesn't work if you put the reported settings in manually. I am very puzzled and frustrated!

john banks

It had got confused and thought all the COM ports were in use. I had to allocate them manually and it complained about duplicating resources. Then it decided they all weren't in use and works again.

Even Linux is simpler than this $hite. Macs just do what they are supposed to do.

Anyone else get frustrated spending hours sorting out computers rather than being productive?

I used to like computers because they always seemed logical and any problem was usually someone not understanding what they were doing.

Then came along Windoze with a mind of its flipping own, and I thought they were supposed to have sorted it with NT and 2000 onwards

XP does seem to sidestep a lot of these issues somehow.

sti555

John,

if windows & ms apps were any better I & loads of other IT monkeys would have to get proper jobs!

lol!

*Sonic*

IBM = In Bits Monthly

Stueyb

John,

I know that the first line IT people at dell etc always say "Have you updated the bios" etc. But sometimes the latest bios fix can sort out such problems. Failing that, either go on the IBMN website and contact technical support because its for the life of the product and they should be able to help as they have probabily seen this problem before, ie check out the hotfixes and issues list etc.

Also have you thought about running diagnostics on it (ie tufftest or similar) as you dont know why the bloke sold it.?

Just a couple of thoughts.

Regards

Stuart

john banks

Thanks, it all seems to be working for now. I think I'll just blame Microsoft for everything including my headgasket as it is fashionable and predictable