Serial ports on new mother boards

My Asus P4P800-Deluxe board has one serial on-board attached to the rear I/O
panel and a second header pin assembly for COM2. Unfortunately, it does not
come with the second serial port on a metal bracket or anything, you need to
buy it separately - but you do have two serial ports with the P4P800.


"R.H." wrote in message
...
I have a question concerning what I see a trend of reducing what used to
be
a standard of two serial ports to one serial port on the new P4 mother
boards coming out. I sometimes use two and yet I want to buy the new ASUS
P4C800-E Deluxe motherboard with a 800FSB processor. I suppose I can buy
an
extra serial board unless the board comes with the serial port on board
and
just does not have the connector.

Or does anyone know of a good P4 motherboard with the 800FSB that has two
serial ports.

Roger

| I have a question concerning what I see a trend of reducing what used
to be
| a standard of two serial ports to one serial port on the new P4 mother
| boards coming out. I sometimes use two and yet I want to buy the new
ASUS
| P4C800-E Deluxe motherboard with a 800FSB processor. I suppose I can
buy an
| extra serial board unless the board comes with the serial port on
board and
| just does not have the connector.
|
| Or does anyone know of a good P4 motherboard with the 800FSB that has
two
| serial ports.
|
| Roger
|
|


There actually is a COM2 serial port header block on the Intel 865/875
chipset motherboards, including the P4C800's. They just don't run the
second COM port out to a connector in the back I/O panel. Sometimes this
isn't listed in the online specifications, but is documented in the user
manuals. You can use most any old standard 9-pin serial port header
cable/bracket found on computers dating back to early PCs. Or you can
use the type that don't have brackets but are just serial connectors
that connect to the auxiliary serial port cutouts still found (but
rarely ever used or noticed) on the back of any standard AT/ATX case.
Computer parts and electronics surplus stores often have boxes of them
either found separately or attached to an old I/O card for just a buck
or two. Otherwise, you'll just need to order the accessory from Asus or
other computer parts supplier.

The COM2 cable/bracket is included in the AMD "Deluxe" versions of Asus
motherboard packages, but for some reason the recent Intel packages
haven't included them.

Thanks, that is kind of what I thought, but I wanted to make sure before I
buy this board.

Roger

"R.H." wrote in message
...
I have a question concerning what I see a trend of reducing what used to
be
a standard of two serial ports to one serial port on the new P4 mother
boards coming out. I sometimes use two and yet I want to buy the new ASUS
P4C800-E Deluxe motherboard with a 800FSB processor. I suppose I can buy
an
extra serial board unless the board comes with the serial port on board
and
just does not have the connector.

Or does anyone know of a good P4 motherboard with the 800FSB that has two
serial ports.

Roger

You can always use a USB to serial port converter. I use one on my Dell
laptop. It does not have any serial ports.

Donald Witmer