USB to serial problem

I know, I know - get a NAVI but.....

Going away on a holiday soon. Finally got the USB to serial Adapter drivers working after much gnashing of teeth but now I cant get any of the GPS programs to recognise the GPS. I think I've tried swithching COM ports but no luck.. very basic computer knowledge so be gentle!

Running laptop with Vista..

@red
If you have USB to serial cable/converter, I hope you know that with that cable you need to have original drivers. That Usb to serial cable is first need to install, and when you have in device manager "usb to serial converter" working properly, in that case you need to connect GPS. But, if you need GPS and Usb to serial cable, in software, now you must switch serial to USB, becouse GPS is need to be shown as USB device. Hope that helps

What type of Garmin is it? There is probably a default setting for the COM port settings depending on the model you have.

What settings did you use for the com port? Common bit rates are 9600, 19200, and possibly 4800. 4800 seems common for NMEA output, although I suspect 9600 would be the best guess. Your other settings should probably be 8 data bits, no parity bit, and 1 stop bit. If that makes no sense to you, let me know what you see in the COM port settings section.

If there is a section for flowcontrol, set it as none, as it shouldn't matter for testing, and probably wont matter anyway.

Do you have hyperterm (a serial terminal emulator) installed? You can use this to test COM ports by sending and receiving data, although I don't know if it comes with Vista.

To get the COM port number on XP you go to control panel, system, hardware tab, device manager, expand ports. Plug the GPS in and see which new com port number appears. Can't remember if the device manager needs to be closed and reopened to refresh, I think its automatic. Hopefully its similar on vista. Also make sure the GPS is on and set to connect. At least you'll know if you have the correct com port number.

Also the GPS manual should give you the baude rate etc, download it if you don't have it.

That explains everything!



Time to buy a Garmin.


Never owned a Garmin but from my experience with syncing mobile phones in the pre blu tooth days, dealing with com ports emulating USB connections, its a real pain in the arse.