B-8 Dell Precision 610 Mini Tower Systems User’s Guide
Before adding a card that remaps the COM ports, check the documentation that
accompanied your software to make sure that the software can be mapped to the
new COM port de signation.
To avoid autoconfiguratio n, you may be able to reset the expansion card’s jumpers or
switches so that
its
port designation changes to the next available COM number, leav-
ing the designation for the built-in port as is. Alternatively, you can disable the built-in
ports throu gh the S yste m Setu p program. T he docum entation for y our e xpansio n card
should provide the card’s default I/O ad dress and allowable IRQ settings . It should
also provide instructions for readdressing the port and changing the IRQ setting if
necessary.
The built-in parallel port has autoconfiguration capability through the System Setup
program. That is, if you set the parallel port to its automatic configuration and add an
expansion card cont aining a port configured as LPT1 (IRQ7, I/O address 378h), the
system automatically remaps the built-in parallel port to its secondary address (IRQ5,
I/O address 278h). If the secondary port address is already being used, the built-in
parallel port is turned off. For more information, see “Parallel Port” in Chapter 3.
For general information on how your operating system handles serial and parallel
ports as well as for more detailed command procedures, see your operating system
documentation.
If yo u reconfig ure yo ur hardw are, y ou ma y need pin number and si gnal inf ormatio n for
the serial port conne ctor s. Figure B-3 illu strates the pin numb ers f or the serial port
connectors, and Table B-3 lists and defines the pin assignments and interface signals
for the serial port connectors.