Downloading from laptops

[Mike Mahar]

I have a very weird problem downloading. I can download successfully from any of my desktop machines but I can't download using any of my laptops. All of my laptops have RS232 ports on them so I'm not using any USB-RS232 converters. I have three different brands of laptops (Dell, Toshiba, Gateway) and the problem exits on all of them.

Is there some secret setting to the COM ports that I have to adjust? I've tried just about everything that I can think of. The IFI loader seems to set up the uart with its own values anyway.

The symptoms vary for different download attempts. Usually, the robots stays in download mode after the download completes. But sometimes, I get a hex dump in the terminal window.

The problem doesn't seem to happen when our executable is smaller, If our manipulator code is missing or the camera code is missing, it is more likely to succeed. Sometimes, the full download succeeds but that is rare.

Does the IFI loader use CTS/RTS or does it try to use X-on or X-off? I've messed with the buffers setting for the com ports but that doesn't seem to help either.

I find it odd that I can almost always download with my desktop machines. Most of the desktop machines are running Windows 2000 while the laptops are running XP. I have on Desktop that is running XP and that seem to download OK.

Is there some secret IFI loader setting or COM port setting or, perhaps, some XP background task that is bumping the download? The progress bar on the laptops seems to move slower than it does on the desktop machines but I haven't actually timed it.

Has anyone seen this problem? We've had it since the regionals last year.