Great way to add limited serial to USB only laptop

I bought this device from BUY.COM in August 2002 for $21.95 with free shipping. I had read a review online that mentioned that the adapter would configure for COM ports 1 - 9. The IOGEAR website and documentation only mentions COM3. BUY.COM, IOGEAR.COM, and the actual blister pack indicate XP compatibility. I saw throughput advertised as greater than 112K, greater than 256K, and 512K. I have no way to test any claim since I only bought one and my fastest serial device is happy at 112K.

It Works!
Happily, it worked out of the box with no glitches or heartburn of any kind. I plugged the cable into one of the two USB ports on my HP N5495 laptop and was happy to see the New Hardware Found message appear. I selected the custom install option (since there is no setup.exe on the CD-ROM) and directed the install software to look in the directory GUC232A/WIN2000. I was prepared for the message from Windows XP Home that warns that the driver has not passed Windows Logo testing. I installed the software, and was surprised to see that it identified the device as "ATEN USB to Serial Cable". ATEN markets a similar looking device that was several dollars more at BUY.COM.

Installation Details & Options
The cable installed itself on COM4 which is fine for many serial peripherals, but the Philips Pronto remote software is known to quit looking if it finds a COM port unoccupied. Since this laptop only has an infra-red serial port (disabled in BIOS) and a built in PCI modem on COM3, I knew the cable COM port had to be moved down to fill the empty slot in COM2. In device manager, I went to the advanced tab for the ATEN (Er, IOGEAR) and noticed that I could select any COM port between 1 and 256 with the exception of 1 or 3 which were both shown as in use. I couldn't explain why COM1 was shown as in use, so at first, I selected COM2. The driver was happy to show itself as COM2, but the Philips Pronto software could not find the remote. I went back to Device Manager and selected COM1 even though it showed some conflict. The cable configured as COM1 and the Philips software was able to find the remote.

Results!
The built in modem still works while the USB to serial cable is installed. No conflicts are reported in Device Manager. I then unplugged the cable from one USB port and plugged it into the other USB port. The New Hardware Found message appeared and I installed the software and configured the device again for COM1. Now I can plug the cable into either USB port and it appears as COM1 without getting into Device Manager.

Further Testing
I also tested the cable with an external ZOOM 56K serial modem. It dialed out, and connected at 44K which is the same as it does on my desktop system. The documentation states that the cable will not work a mouse because a mouse requires a real IRQ. I tried connecting an old serial trackball, and indeed, I could never get XP to recognize the trackball during a hardware search. I presume it would have failed to find a mouse too.

Even More Testing
For grins, I tried the cable on my desktop system which runs WIN98. I installed the cable into my powered external USB hub. The Found New Hardware message appeared and I directed it to the WIN98 software. The cable installed as COM3 even though no COM2 was present or enabled in the motherboard BIOS. Alas, the COM port could not be changed like in XP! The Advanced tab offered no ability to change the COM port number. I was unable to get the finicky Pronto software to find the remote. I was able to change the COM port to a HIGHER number by reserving resources in Device Manager in WIN98. I gave up trying to get it to go to COM2. Perhaps someone else with more knowledge can get it to work. I didn't try contacting IOGEAR. I installed the ZOOM external modem on the cable while the cable was connected to the USB hub on the desktop system. WIN98 found the modem, installed the drivers that I had freshly downloaded and connected at 49 KB. I would call even the WIN98 experiment a success. Perhaps WIN98SE offers configurable COM port numbers. I don't know.

What I Liked
I like the fact that it has a 1 foot cable with a status LED in the DB9M housing. This lets it get away from the back of the laptop with ease so that I can see transmit/receive data, and at the same time is not overly bulky for the laptop bag. A shorter cable wouldn't have made it around to the side of the laptop as easily, and a longer cable would have added bulk.

Conclusion
As RS232 equipped devices become scarcer, the need for this kind of cable will go away. However, if you have a laptop without serial ports and need to interface to some older serial device, or you need more serial ports on your USB equipped desktop, this cable may provide a cheap solution.