5 Jun
2012
5 Jun
'12
3:05 p.m.
Possibly your laptop or cable is killing it. Rs323 cabling and ports use quite high voltage for signalling in comparison to say USB or ethernet... If the chip set of the Linux box is borked you may be frying the port. Despite what others have said I would try a USB serial adaptor (I suggest fddi chip based ones as found at dick smiths) to use instead of a 'real' port. These tend to have much better voltage regulation in them than ancient laptops.