Wanted: laptop with serial port

[DaveH]

Mine died yesterday. Let me know what you got.

[Top End]

To buy or use?

[PSiedTSi]

I'm assuming you need it to connect to AEM correct? I've used the USB adaptors for AEM in the past and they seem to work fine(including my current computer). I'd suggest a netbook to be honest.

And what happened with your laptop? It may be fixable?

[DaveH]

Prefer to buy something.

Yes, I've been using a couple different usb-serial adapters but with my newer work laptop they only seems to work intermittantly. I'd rather just get one with a serial port and not deal with the adapters.

My personal laptop may be repairable, I'll probably look into it since I think I have some stuff on there that I'd like to get off. Right now when you turn it on the internal fan runs and thats it. It doesn't attempt to boot up, just blank screen and no hdd activity.

[PSiedTSi]

Does the power light or anything blink before shutting off?

Regardless of the state of the laptop, as long as the HDD is in good shape, you will be able to remove it, and with an adapter, pull all of your stuff of it to your new computer.

On the USB-Serial converters, I thought I read somewhere that the best one to use is the Dynex branded one. It might be just to use that driver since they should be all pretty much universal. Serial port laptops are getting harder and harder to find, it will be something older.

[91nbtsi]

Dave- I had great luck with my PCMCIA to serial adapter. Worked as good as my old serial port laptop. Just an idea.

[funky_monkey58]

I have been having really good luck with my serial adapter with my Lenovo T61 running windows vista.
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3120513#
^That is the exact cable I use and it requires a special driver that you load off of the cd it comes with and in AEM PRO you actually select it as a serial port.

I used to have two of them around....Until one fateful day that I had my aem out in the engine bay testing things and sorta blanked that the lap top was resting on the mechanical fan and kinda bumped the key....Threw the laptop across the engine bay and tore one of my cables into bits.

[DaveH]

Thanks for the replies guys. Luckily I got a buddy who fixes computers. Mine actually had a broken solder on the main board that he fixed, so the old mule is working again. He also had an older mule that had a serial port, so I am going to borrow that for now.