Is the elusive irq with ? question mark a conflict or just a com port without assigned irq (needs jumpers)

Did that port on the ribbon cable come along with the board or separately?
There are two pinouts for those serial headers, basically 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 vs. 1-3-5-7-9-2-4-6-8-10

jakethompson1 wrote on 2023-09-27, 02:10:

Did that port on the ribbon cable come along with the board or separately?
There are two pinouts for those serial headers, basically 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 vs. 1-3-5-7-9-2-4-6-8-10

Not sure, since I have a lot of old stock. I have tried some I/o controller cards where the serial port is on the same bracket. I’ll try that controller tonight and jumper it so the irq shows properly in syschk.exe

and try ctmouse, might be more forgiving in detecting moue

Tried ctmouse but still did not detect. Not sure what I’m doing wrong. I have two ps2/serial compatible mice attached. One is Microsoft Intellimouse trackball with 68666 labelled adapter and the other is a Logitech three button mouseman also with included conversion adapter.

on the picture you are still connected to ribbon cables, as mentioned earlier those might be wired differently from what the card expects, safest to verify with multimeter/oscilloscope. Easiest to control are DTR and RTS lines https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Serial_Programm … ontrol_Register
run debug.exe
type 'o 3fc 0'
measure voltage on every pin of COM1 header directly on the card, write it down
type 'o 3fc 1'
measure voltage on every pin of COM1 header again looking for one pin that changed, write it down as DTR. It should be either pin 4 or pin 7.
now plug your ribbon cable, poke a needle into DB9 hole number 4 https://www.usconverters.com/index.php?main_p … id=61&chapter=0 and check if there is voltage there
type 'o 3fc 0'
check if its gone

Just gives errors

blaming vogons fonts, o0O. o letter, 0 zero
code tag helps, so its my fault after all 😀

1type 'o 3fc 0'
2type 'o 3fc 1'

rasz_pl wrote on 2023-09-28, 15:21:

blaming vogons fonts, o0O. o letter, 0 zero code tag helps, so its my fault after all :) […]
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blaming vogons fonts, o0O. o letter, 0 zero
code tag helps, so its my fault after all 😀

Copy code to clipboard

1type 'o 3fc 0'
2type 'o 3fc 1'

Doesn’t work? Maybe show a screenshot so I don’t interpret the word “type” literally.

It looks like both my ribbon cables are “straight through”, pin assignments are the same on the card header as on the 9pin ribbon

Jester wrote on 2023-09-27, 01:46:

I have this 486 system ive been putting together. It can be finicky cuz it’s old and occasionally I must reseat the controller c […]
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I have this 486 system ive been putting together. It can be finicky cuz it’s old and occasionally I must reseat the controller card or the 4x4mb 30pin ram or I’ll get the long beep at power on.

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/jetway … -v2.0#downloads

2D11AD1A-73DD-4DE0-86D3-872E0AF142B0.jpeg

The last piece of the puzzle is getting a serial mouse to work. I have some Logitech mouseman mice that come with the green ps2 to serial adapter. The frustrating thing is that I never got mouse.exe from Logitech 7.x or 8.x installs to recognize the mouse.

Syschk.exe shows valid com ports but sometimes the com port shows a ? question mark in place of an assigned irq . I’ve tried several controller cards, one goldstar Isa and another eide vlb which gives same results. Is it possible that the motherboard is the problem? The jetway board has an ami bios and it’s the one that is supposed to have mouse support for changing the options. I don’t like it and wish I could hot flash it to something else. I don’t see any mention of serial or com port options but I guess that’s because that isn’t on board. There’s only a “mouse support enabled” option under advanced.

Thanks for your suggestions.

F7D8E0E8-E7A2-4923-B41C-D321C3C94778.jpegEB2804CF-A616-4DAD-824B-DEBE31A68E68.jpeg51061AA6-BBC0-47C3-8B80-E221FAD0B394.jpeg

Small favour to ask. Would you mind dumping the BIOS ROM image?
You can do this with a DOS utility called Navrátil System Information (NSSI). Before you do, just enter the CMOS setup and temporarily disable BIOS Shadowing (System ROM shadow) under the Advanced CMOS Setup.

Jester wrote on 2023-09-28, 17:59:

It looks like both my ribbon cables are “straight through”, pin assignments are the same on the card header as on the 9pin ribbon
BB7A706E-3488-4D72-891A-BFD31429230C.jpeg

Your brackets/ribbon cables are wrong for the card, you need a crossed connection.

If you connect your bracket to card header, I bet you don’t get ground on the pin 5 of the com port, this is the easiest way to be sure. You need to resolder the wires in the com port side so that they match with the pinout on the card.

Not long ago I needed to do this with my Zida 4DPS onboard COM port. I have a bunch of these COM port brackets, but none were crossed type.

Jester wrote on 2023-09-28, 17:57:

Doesn’t work? Maybe show a screenshot so I don’t interpret the word “type” literally.

you said it, yet you didnt test the last possible and most obvious option? :] If we are at a soccer game and I say shout 'GOAL' will you be shouting shout apostrophe GOAL apostrophe? 😮 😀

1o 3fc 0
2o 3fc 1

this should be flipping voltage on DTR pin

Afaik straight 1:1 are the never type. AT/EVEREX https://pinoutguide.com/Motherboard/rs232_hea … er_pinout.shtml while yours might be DTK/INTEL
You can start with pin 7 on your card while alternating those two commands.
ps: you dont have to type whole o 3fc over and over, keyboard right cursor retypes last command

CharlieFoxtrot wrote on 2023-09-28, 19:07:

If you connect your bracket to card header, I bet you don’t get ground on the pin 5 of the com port, this is the easiest way to be sure.

doh, so simple and doesnt require any software incantations! Yes do this instead.

Okay right. What is 3fc? Shouldn’t I use 3f8/2f8 to designate the com port? Or is this just the hex for flipping the dts ?

Well the 25pin is built-in to the card so if I could dig up a db25 to db9 converter that would work for the time being. Hella ugly though.

Also found these two Data Technology VLB cards with what looks like the original ribbon cable and db9. Just need to get the jumpers right for them because they show no comports on boot.

Small favour to ask. Would you mind dumping the BIOS ROM image?
You can do this with a DOS utility called Navrátil System Information (NSSI). Before you do, just enter the CMOS setup and temporarily disable BIOS Shadowing (System ROM shadow) under the Advanced CMOS Setup.

Sure will give it a try. Is it for archives / debug ?

Jester wrote on 2023-09-28, 19:46:

Okay right. What is 3fc? Shouldn’t I use 3f8/2f8 to designate the com port? Or is this just the hex for flipping the dts ?

yes, this register lets you directly set DTR pin voltage https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Serial_Programm … ontrol_Register

Jester wrote on 2023-09-28, 19:46:

Well the 25pin is built-in to the card so if I could dig up a db25 to db9 converter that would work for the time being. Hella ugly though.

Jester wrote on 2023-09-28, 19:46:

Also found these two Data Technology VLB cards with what looks like the original ribbon cable and db9. Just need to get the jumpers right for them because they show no comports on boot.

if one is long enough you could try swapping it into your original card

if one is long enough you could try swapping it into your original card

Just tried that and no good. I believe my two acer chipset isa controller cards need the crossed pin ribbon cable, while all my vlb controller cards are straight through. Every card I try has an issue. The vlb cards I can’t seem to get 3f8 /2f8 com ports enabled using the jumpers on post , while the isa cards I can get com ports but need specific ribbon cable. Some of them won’t post at all.

I might go this path instead and print this isa ps/2 card.

So the data technology vlb controller card worked finally. I was getting those weird missing irq? in syschk.exe and I decided to take the unecesarry cards out (GVC nic-2002bt and a suncom gameport controller) and the interrupts and mouse work fine now. I’ll try and avoid unknown brackets with serial ribbons and just use I/o controllers with onboard 9pin serial port.