I'm assuming you've never used this laptop to program an RC before?
On another mailing list that I subscribe to, there were reports that the serial ports of people's Dell laptops wouldn't work correctly. I just went back to find those messages when I noticed a new message was posted today. Maybe you will find this usefull
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There was a thread some month ago about compatibility of Dell Laptops with Dynamic-C. I even managed to find a solution for myself and recomended it to the group.
Well, it's time to review. I am using Dell Latitude C810 notebook (P3/1000, 512mb, Intel 815 mobile chipset). On a recent visit to Dell support site (http://support.dell.com), I noticed there is a new version of BIOS available (dated somewhere beginning of November). I am usually of the habit to keep my BIOS (at least) current, so I downloaded it.
To my avail, I just noticed that DC works straigth forward without any problems and without my workaround! May be some Dell support staff is lurking here and has seen our troubles!
So, to sum it up: If you have an Dell Laptop and are experiencing troubles communicating, try a recent BIOS upgrade. It worked for me, it solved some other problems relating to RS port, so it could work for you as well.
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And here was his original post, that he refered to above
Quote:
I have had the same problem with my Dell Latitude C810. The problem is that somehow the serial port driver sends binary 00's even without anything running, and this happens under both Win2k and WinXP. I have not too many different laptops around to see what's going on, may be the problem is with the Intel chipset they're using.
I solve the problem with a little nice utility called PortMon, downloadable at http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/fr...portmon.shtml. In fact, just running it and then closing causes the serial port to behave correctly. It probably loads some serial driver. The only side effect of that is that is this driver prevents Win2k into enterin hybernation mode, but that's not so big trouble.
However, you'd need USB-RS232 adapter if you need more ports out of your laptop (being it Dell or not).
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The fact that you are seeing the basic init error whenever you aren't sending something sounds like it could be related to a serial port that sends nulls when idle.
I hope this helps and keep us informed