Thread: Com Ports not working in WinXP on EPIA-M

One thing I just noticed...

When booting up, on the screen where it lists the hardware, ie. Primary Master, Primary slave, RAM, etc., under serial ports it states NONE!!?!!??!! And it states the same for the LPT port even though I have it enabled in the BIOS as well!?!?!?!?!

Are you sure it's not set to "Auto" in the BIOS? That causes all mannor of problems. Also, disabled COM ports will cause the same symptom. Perhaps there is a hidden "enable" option?

Originally posted by Aaron Cake
Are you sure it's not set to "Auto" in the BIOS? That causes all mannor of problems. Also, disabled COM ports will cause the same symptom. Perhaps there is a hidden "enable" option?

I did try the Auto option as well as the standard settings and disable... Still no go.

I have an e-mail into VIAVPSD to see if they have any ideas on the matter.

Just an update to kill this thread...

Spoke with VIA Tech support and they told me the Motherboard was bad.

So a quick call to idot.com got me a express RMA and a new board should be here on Thurs.

Guess I should open mine and test it soon just in case since mine is probably from the same idot batch yours was...

-Mario

Thanks for the update, I guess I better get testing as well.

Setting up mine now and doesn't seem to be a problem.

XP took about an hour to install.
SP1 took another 1/2 hour.

I'll tell ya' that the south bridge gets burning hot and all I'm doing is installing the SP. My finger still hurts...

I think I may consider a heat sink for the southbridge.
If you have any good suggestions for a nice small adhesive one, let me know.

The LAN seems to be slower than most from what I see.

I bought a used low-profile micro-atx case with what looked to be a 1U size 150 watt power supply. My first thought was my PC Power and cooling would be a direct fit. Unfortunately, it was a little tall. It utilizes a standard 5¼ and 3½ size bays.

I think I'll have to build a custom case as this is a little big.

I'll post some pics as soon as I can.

Thanks...

-Mario

Originally posted by m3rdpwr
I think I may consider a heat sink for the southbridge.
If you have any good suggestions for a nice small adhesive one, let me know.

I bought an Iceberq Copper Chipset Cooler set for $10. It includes a nice copper cooler, that fits on the processor, and two chipset coolers one for the northbridge (medium size) and one for the southbridge (small size, just big enough to cover the footprint of the chip itself). The two smaller heatsinks are really copper plated, maybe copper colored because of the wieght??? The processor cooler is much quieter than the stock one, I think 26db, and I had no issues with heat. All of the heatsinks were warm to the touch after running tests and such. Also, the set comes with the sticky thermal pads and yes they can hold the heatsink for the CPU with no problem. I had to pull it off and put the old one back on to return it and it was a pain in the *** to pry off!!!

ONE NOTE: the cooler for the processor has tabs for the holes in the motherboard but they WON'T fit because of the CAPS right next to the processor.

good luck...

Hey Defiler, can you see how hot your southbridge gets?

Also, what I belive to be the 5.1 codec in the back gets even hotter.

All the voltages seem okay.

Thanks for the info on the sinks!

-Mario