What's A COM and IrDA Connectors?

[blahblah]

I was looking through the motherboard manual and it talks about a COM and IrDA Connectors.... I was wondering if someone can tell me what this is?

[kukulcan]

COM is a serial port, you can get a back plate to add a serial port

 

IrDA is an infared port, I think you can also get a back plate.

 

Both of these connect to headers on the motherboard.

[blahblah]

Thanks..... what are serial ports used for?...... infrared is probably used for wireless things right?

[Guest ElAguila]

Com ports are left overs that aren't used much today. They used to be used for things such as a mouse or other peripheral devices that mainly usb these days.

[kukulcan]

As ElAguila said COM ports aren't used much any more, unless you have some old hardware you shouldn't need it. (Old 56k modems and mice)

 

Infrared can be used by devices like mobile/cell phones and PDA's. It is wireless but requires line of site, and a very short range.

[szurlo]

Com ports are left overs that aren't used much today. They used to be used for things such as a mouse or other peripheral devices that mainly usb these days.

 

Not sure why the general consesus on COMM ports is that they are old, obsolete tech.

 

I have the following that STILL require a COM port.

- Garmin StreetPilot III GPS. 2 years old.

- External modem - Used for faxing. 3 years old.

- Palm Pilot Cradle - 5 years old. (OK, I'll give ya that one)

- Tivo DVR (Need serial cable to get a bash shell. You Tivo hackers will know what I'm talking about)

- La Crosse Weather Station - Brand new.

 

I'm also thinking about getting into automated Christmas light displays like the guy in Ohio (some of you have seen that video, I'm sure). The equipement that does that is manufactured by Light-O-Rama, and yes, you guessed it, requires a COM port to program the controllers.

 

Why DFI chose not to include a backplate for the COM header is a mystery to me.

[Guest DEViANCE]

infrared sucks bad, not even worth it unless u have another pc right beside it " dont go to far appart " and want to send pictures , it is way to slow for big files.. not worth to use at all.

[NEOAethyr]

IR was used for printers too, was a novilty thing, as far as I know DEViANCE is right about those, I heard they're slow.

 

Com ports, another use would be to emulate a dtv box...

Kinda like tivo stuff lol .

 

But you'ed need 2 of them, one for the ah nm, I should'nt talk about that anyways.

 

Com ports are probably still used on some "normal"(sorta) rom programmers, I think some these days may be usb though I dn.

 

Debuggin using com ports too, people have done this before, ie the psx.

The lpt, or printer port is also used for stuff like this.

Just that the printer can be faster.

 

Etc etc.

 

Disable it form the bios if you don't have any use for it.

 

As for using them, well some full time use stuff you shoudl'nt bother with on that rig, you'de want more like an old pentium1 or something that does'nt need a hd and what not.

The only use I can think of temp wise would be a rom programmer of some sort, like if you dump roms or something.

That would be more or less something you would'nt have running at all times.

 

 

Again, just disable them completely from teh bios, windows will spaz out a bit about it but it's not a big deal, nothing in windows "seems" to realy on it being there.

 

Printer port wise...

I'm sure you know what that is, I suppose you could disable that too.

I myself leave it enabled for when I hook up custom controllers, ie my psx controllers.

[blahblah]

Thanks...... so I'm guessing i dont really need these ports right?..... well will i get problems disabling it in bios?........

[NEOAethyr]

Nope, just a stupid "!" thing in the device manager, I think it's a ghost device though so you wont even see it.

I think.

 

You wont have any probs disabling the ir device, and no probs disabling the com ports either.

Lpt, ie printer port, I dn.

[Alex**]

my origin b2 radar decector updats via com port too and thats not old

[Guest Joey]

Nope, just a stupid "!" thing in the device manager, I think it's a ghost device though so you wont even see it.

I think.

 

Yeah... if you disable it in the BIOS... the OS will never see it... so no little "!"... it'll just be like it's not there.

 

I usually kill the floppy controller (since I don't use a floppy drive), parallel port, IrDA, and serial (COM) ports. I don't know how much of an impact this has on actual performance.. but I figure he less Windows has to monitor the better.