USB Serial Converter Drivers?

[MylesGibson]

I recently bought some cables from Facebook marketplace so I could connect my Celestron AVX mount to my laptop. I have the old style handset so need the USB-serial converter lead. 

Anyway, I go and buy it and the driver is on a disk. My laptop doesn't have anywhere to insert a disk. So, I go online, and the only page I find is here: http://www.tri-plc.com/USB-RS232/drivers.htm

This is the correct product, but the drivers only go up to Windows 7. I run Windows 10. Does anyone have any idea where I could find the correct drivers to run this on WIndows 10?

[JonC]

What happens when you plug it in? Windows has a lot of drivers built in, check in device manager and see if it appears and is working. If you get stuck I can send you one that definitely works in win10, have a few laying around.

[MylesGibson]

16 minutes ago, JonC said:

What happens when you plug it in? Windows has a lot of drivers built in, check in device manager and see if it appears and is working. If you get stuck I can send you one that definitely works in win10, have a few laying around.

When I plug it in, it comes under "other devices" in device manager, with the yellow triangle which tells me there are no drivers for it. I tried updating the drivers by the usual method, and doesn't come back with anything

[JonC]

Try downloading the alternative win7 64bit driver. Unzip it into a folder and then point the driver update dialogue in device manager at the folder.

Win7 drivers can often work in Win10.

 

But if your doing anything where your going  to depend on the  adapter I would highly recommend getting a good brand one, I use a lot of Startech stuff at work, on expensive projects and they havent failed me yet, the projects involve capturing data serial times a second over several months. Startech one will cost you about £18, or can grab another brand and test it for you and send as a late christmas pressie.

[Seelive]

I'm sure there's been other threads on here about problems with USB to serial converters using 'cloned' Prolific chips. I use FTDI versions, Win10 just installs them without the need to download a driver. However all should not be lost, if you don't get an answer on here then an internet search may provide a solution rather than resorting to buying a genuine device.

[MylesGibson]

22 minutes ago, JonC said:

Try downloading the alternative win7 64bit driver. Unzip it into a folder and then point the driver update dialogue in device manager at the folder.

Win7 drivers can often work in Win10.

 

But if your doing anything where your going  to depend on the  adapter I would highly recommend getting a good brand one, I use a lot of Startech stuff at work, on expensive projects and they havent failed me yet, the projects involve capturing data serial times a second over several months. Startech one will cost you about £18, or can grab another brand and test it for you and send as a late christmas pressie.

I can try the windows 7 one. I couldn't even find a proper branding for this one, so may well end up just buying a new one. As long as it works fine with the other cable! I have used Startech stuff before without issues so may have a look at their stuff. 

 

19 minutes ago, Seelive said:

I'm sure there's been other threads on here about problems with USB to serial converters using 'cloned' Prolific chips. I use FTDI versions, Win10 just installs them without the need to download a driver. However all should not be lost, if you don't get an answer on here then an internet search may provide a solution rather than resorting to buying a genuine device.

I have been doing internet searches, that's what I was doing up until putting a post here as I couldn't find anything

[Seelive]

With a quick search I came up with this:

https://www.totalcardiagnostics.com/support/Knowledgebase/Article/View/92/20/prolific-usb-to-serial-fix-official-solution-to-code-10-error

I haven't scrutinised the article so take no responsibility for it's applicability or authenticity but it may give you a way forward?

[MylesGibson]

1 minute ago, Seelive said:

With a quick search I came up with this:

https://www.totalcardiagnostics.com/support/Knowledgebase/Article/View/92/20/prolific-usb-to-serial-fix-official-solution-to-code-10-error

I haven't scrutinised the article so take no responsibility for it's applicability or authenticity but it may give you a way forward?

Not quite right for my application. I found this article before. But it doesn't even register as a COM port. I don't think it's a case of a clone chip

[Seelive]

So when you plug it in, does windows issue the usual 'bleep' when new hardware is detected?

[JamesF]

It may perhaps be helpful to know what the device manager shows as the "VID" and "PID" values for the device, if you can find those.  I seem to recall they're shown somewhere in the device details though not being a Windows user I can't recall exactly where at the moment.

James

[MylesGibson]

4 minutes ago, Seelive said:

So when you plug it in, does windows issue the usual 'bleep' when new hardware is detected?

Yeah, it does recognise theres something there, but shows up in other devices, and does recognise it as a USB-serial converter. I'd take a screenshot but I've given up for the evening! I'll go back to it tomorrow.

4 minutes ago, JamesF said:

It may perhaps be helpful to know what the device manager shows as the "VID" and "PID" values for the device, if you can find those.  I seem to recall they're shown somewhere in the device details though not being a Windows user I can't recall exactly where at the moment.

James

I'll have a look tomorrow. got annoyed and packed it away for the evening!

[JamesF]

2 minutes ago, MylesGibson said:

I'll have a look tomorrow. got annoyed and packed it away for the evening!

Often a wise move :)

Given those bits of information it may be possible to work out who the original manufacturer is and see if they have device drivers available.  An even longer shot is to download a Linux install DVD and boot it into "try out" mode.  It's possible that Linux might recognise the device sufficiently to give some clues as to where to get device drivers for Windows.  That's probably getting towards a "last resort" option though.

James

[MylesGibson]

10 minutes ago, JamesF said:

Often a wise move

Given those bits of information it may be possible to work out who the original manufacturer is and see if they have device drivers available.  An even longer shot is to download a Linux install DVD and boot it into "try out" mode.  It's possible that Linux might recognise the device sufficiently to give some clues as to where to get device drivers for Windows.  That's probably getting towards a "last resort" option though.

James

They do have drivers available, but they only go up to Windows 7 on the site I found (link in the question)

[JamesF]

9 minutes ago, MylesGibson said:

They do have drivers available, but they only go up to Windows 7 on the site I found (link in the question)

My suspicion is that they may not be the manufacturers of the device, possibly just rebadging someone else's product.  Should that be the case then the actual manufacturer may have win10 drivers available even if they don't.

James

[Seelive]

1 hour ago, MylesGibson said:

Not quite right for my application. I found this article before. But it doesn't even register as a COM port. I don't think it's a case of a clone chip

If it shows up in 'other devices' rather than a COM port it suggests to me that it hasn't found a suitable driver for it, which then suggests that the latest Prolific driver won't work with it.

[MylesGibson]

Just now, Seelive said:

If it shows up in 'other devices' rather than a COM port it suggests to me that it hasn't found a suitable driver for it, which then suggests that the latest Prolific driver won't work with it.

Which was the topic of this post that I cannot find a driver for it lol. Hence the internet searching I done yielded no results that worked.

[JonC]

1 minute ago, Seelive said:

If it shows up in 'other devices' rather than a COM port it suggests to me that it hasn't found a suitable driver for it, which then suggests that the latest Prolific driver won't work with it.

good point. There is a legacy driver (pre 2010) on the originally linked website.

 

Myles, did you try the win7 64bit one? 

Startech usb serial with a ftdi chip is £18.21 on amazon. have to say life is way too short to muck about with flaky usb serial adapters.  When we need a lot of serial ports at work we use 16 port Digi edgports, over 10 years old and still going strong. We cab have multiples of these stacked up each connected to serial outputs on sensors. 

[MylesGibson]

1 minute ago, JonC said:

Myles, did you try the win7 64bit one? 

Nah, I've given up for the evening. I'll give it a try tomorrow, and if not, I'll just buy a new one

[JonC]

Just now, MylesGibson said:

Nah, I've given up for the evening. I'll give it a try tomorrow, and if not, I'll just buy a new one

Good call 

[MylesGibson]

Figured it out (kind of)

I just downloaded a bunch of different drivers in the hope that one would work. One did!

[Seelive]

Before you try to use it in anger, just make sure that when you unplug the converter and then plug it back in again the driver still works and Win10 doesn't put you back in the starting block.

[MylesGibson]

1 hour ago, Seelive said:

Before you try to use it in anger, just make sure that when you unplug the converter and then plug it back in again the driver still works and Win10 doesn't put you back in the starting block.

Already done. Made sure it was working correctly before connecting it to the mount