[Jim E]

If you can, find another laptop with regular serial ports. It doesn't have to be powerful, we used a PII our first couple years. Make sure you use the new black cables in the KOP. Run IFI loader 1.10 *.hex files using a Flash Stick to verify correct operation.

It may be the restrictions the school district is placing on your user account. Industry and schools get a little carried away with security because some hackers love a challenge. Restricting serial ports is not unheard of.

It might also be interrupt errors within the laptop your using. Sometimes other devices use the same interrupts. This problem existed more with Win98, WinME, and some Win2K installations. XP doesn't care.

Also check the settings of the serial port. I think the settings are 115K baud, 8 data bits, 0 stop bits, no parity. Check the IFI Programming tips manual to be sure.

Download into the robot the default.hex file from FIRST. This should ALWAYS work if no changes have been made to it.

If the above does work, then you have a program error in your code. That Dreaded red light of death ( or orange in your case because it happened so fast) does appear quick if there is a While loop error in Initialization.

I hope this helps.