STEP-BY-STEP SUGGESTIONS FOR PCMCIA LAPTOP SETUP WITH BRAIN-BOXES PCMCIA DUAL RS232 CARD.
This assumes that the PC is running Windows 98.
1) Plug the Brain Boxes Dual PCMCIA RS232 card in to PC (Laptop)
2) The PC should detect that there is new hardware present. If so skip to 5 below
3) If it does not detect the hardware automatically you will need to install the drivers manually. Click START, SETTINGS, CONTROL PANEL then ADD NEW HARDWARE.
4) Click NEXT until you are asked “Do you want windows to search for your new hardware” then check “No I want to select the new hardware from a list” Then NEXT
Go to step 7
5)Windows will “search for a software program which makes the hardware work”
( known as a “driver” )
6) Click NEXT then check the box marked “display a list of all the drivers in a specific location, so you can select the driver that you want”
7) Click NEXT then select MULTIFUNCTION ADAPTERS and click NEXT
8) On the next screen select “HAVE DISK” then “BROWSE”
If you have the Serial Solutions CD which came with the kit insert it in to the CD drive. Scroll to d: or the drive that your CD is allocated to, if different.
Select the “Diskimg” folder, then “SSWin9x” folder
OR
If you have only the “Serial Solutions For Windows 95/98 Driver Disk” floppy disk (also supplied as part of the kit or downloadable from our website) Then insert it in the floppy drive and Scroll to a:
9) Select the file called “ssports.inf” then click OK. Then OK again.
10) When you see the line “PCMCIA 2-Port RS232 Card Port1” followed by the file date click NEXT, then NEXT again. The required files will then be copied automatically.
11) The PC will then realize that the second port needs installing click NEXT and go to step 6 again and repeat steps 6 to 10. step 10 will show the words “PCMCIA 2-Port RS232 Card Port2” this time. ( If you have via step 3 you will need to repeat from step 3 again)
12) Eventually the “unknown hardware” box will disappear on its own. You will then be prompted to restart the computer. You MUST do so to finish this part of the process.
If you are not asked this question ( E.G. from a manual install ) then you MUST restart the computer in the normal way before the new ports will be available.
13) When windows has restarted select START, SETTINGS, CONTROL PANEL, SYSTEM, DEVICE MANAGER. With “view devices by type” checked.
Double-click on ports and you will see the two new ports. They will both be shown as “Pcmcia RS232 Port (Com x)” Where x is the next two available port numbers on your particular PC. Make a note of these two numbers. You will need then when you install EFSView.
The two numbers shown may not be consecutive. The laptop may, for example have already allocated some ports to other devices such as infra-red or modems. This will probably cause the numbers to change after restarting the laptop. If that occurs do not try to restore them, just use the com numbers that windows has allocated to the card for later entry in to EFSview.
14) Select one of these ports and PROPERTIES. Make sure that “exists in all hardware profiles” is checked.
15) Select the “port settings” tab. Check the baud rate multiplier box at the bottom left-hand corner. Check 2 under “Baud rate multiplier factor”
Set “bits per second” to 115200
Set “flow control” to “none”.
Click OK.
16) Repeat 14 and 15 for the other port.
You are now ready to install EFSview. That is relatively simple process. Click here for instructions
Use the port numbers learned in step 13 for the COM settings in that program’s setup.
When you have completed the EFSView setup you will need to restart your PC one more time to enable EFSView to run.
NOTE
The ability of the PC to keep-up with the incoming data will depend on its processor speed and the other tasks that it is given. They can be programs that are automatically loaded when your PC starts up and are signified by icons in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. They can usually be closed-down by right-clicking on each one and selecting the appropriate exit or shut-down option.
It is also strongly recommended that you stop any screensaver by selecting “none” in the normal screensaver function. Screensavers can waste valuable processing speed even when they are supposedly dormant.
We recommend a Pentium II or III processor running at a minimum of 450 Mhz.
The drivers for The Brain Boxes PCMCIA card do not yet support adjustment of the FIFO, whereas the ISA card does allow it. We are waiting for them to release a new driver which should allow that. When it is available we will post a link to it on our website.
These are suggestions, not instructions. The exact procedure may vary from PC to PC depending on the exact version of the operating system and the PC hardware configuration.
Sparc Systems Ltd. December 2000
Amended May 2001