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I installed a usb serial cable on my laptop , my laptop runs W8 , when i connected the cable automatically a driver was installed , but at the end of the installation it showed an error.

1.- How can it be fixed
2.- Where it´s the hyperterminal application on W8

Thanks in advance

Navigato_r

navigato_r wrote:

2.- Where it´s the hyperterminal application on W8

Doesn't exist. As of Windows Vista back in 2007 it was dropped from the OS.

It was not a Microsoft product and it can be bought from here for $60 USD.

We use TeraTerm for serial comms to replace Hyperterminal. It's free. http://ttssh2.sourceforge.jp/

As to the USB cable, it's hard to say. I don't personally like USB->serial cables because in my experience they tend to be unreliable. On a desktop machine I prefer PCI Express or PCI serial-port cards, and for laptops I'm partial to ExpressCard or PC Card serial port cards. Failing that, I gather that the best USB->serial chips are made by FTDI, included in better cables like these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... 905&y=-112

To fix the issue, you could see if the manufacturer has a driver for Windows 8 on their website.

Without more information, sounds like a drive issue.

bthylafh wrote:

As to the USB cable, it's hard to say. I don't personally like USB->serial cables because in my experience they tend to be unreliable. On a desktop machine I prefer PCI Express or PCI serial-port cards, and for laptops I'm partial to ExpressCard or PC Card serial port cards. Failing that, I gather that the best USB->serial chips are made by FTDI, included in better cables like these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... 905&y=-112

Don't disagree with the hardware port as a preferred method but this may be a problem if you don't have a PCI-e or ExpressCard port. We've had very good luck with Tripplite (Keyspan) USA-19HS USB-Serial converters. They just work. FTDI chipset with stock driver is my second choice.

PuTTY works with serial ports as well.

As for the device error, you're going to have to dig into the device manager and event viewer to find out what's wrong.

Most USB serial adapters you buy these days use a chipset made by a company called Prolific. We use USB-to-serial converters a lot where I work (we deal with a lot of devices that talk RS-232 or RS-422), and the Windows drivers for the Prolific-based units suck. They're cheap for a reason.

Go to Newegg or TigerDirect and search for USB-to-serial adapters that use the FTDI chipset. They cost a few bucks more, but unlike the Prolific-based units they actually work.

While not an option for the OP (since it is a laptop), an even better choice for desktop users is to check whether your motherboard has a COM header on it. Even if there isn't a DB-9 on the rear port cluster, the motherboard may still have on-board COM hardware; all you need to do is buy the corresponding rear panel DB-9 bracket & cable to allow you to use the motherboard's native COM port.

PuTTY works great as a serial terminal. I like it much better then TeraTerm.

@bthylafh
Do you have any recommendations for ExpressCard serial port cards? I was looking at them a while ago, but I couldn't tell what features I should look for.

This http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6839158050 and this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6839158049 look the best.

Yes, another vote for PuTTY. Great piece of software, and the price is right!

(PuTTY is so popular it even got ported back to Linux... so what started out as a Windows version of the *NIX SSH tools has now come full circle!)

Flatland_Spider wrote:

@bthylafh
Do you have any recommendations for ExpressCard serial port cards? I was looking at them a while ago, but I couldn't tell what features I should look for.

Our telecoms guy has this & he says it's dead reliable.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6839158033

It's more expensive but has a native UART instead of being EC->USB->serial, so it's a real serial port.

Nice, thanks! The datasheet from Startech does say it's Linux compatible even though Newegg doesn't list it.

Flatland_Spider wrote:

Nice, thanks! The datasheet from Startech does say it's Linux compatible even though Newegg doesn't list it.

Even if the datasheet didn't explicitly say so I would've been surprised if it wasn't. Serial ports (both "real" and USB) seem to be pretty well-supported on Linux these days. Even the crappy Prolific ones work acceptably (usually...) with the stock Linux USB serial drivers.