1st Gen. Promethean Board Serial to USB - Problems

[saudus]

Good Afternoon,

 

We have purchased new teachers PCs without COM ports.

 

We have 7 first Generation Promethean Boards which we are now having issues connecting to the Activ Driver.

 

We have tried KEYSPAN USA-19QW, KEYSPAN USA-19HS and USB-Serial CH340

"Serial to USB" connectors, which all appear to work correctly and create COM Ports appearing in the device manager.

But the ActivDriver software is failing to connect to the boards, and I am seeking any advice.

See Attachments.

 

Any suggestions?

 

Also : we appear to have some first generation boards with board to USB cables already installed?

and these available to purchase, or are theses an actually different board model?

[Meldrew]

I've found it a bit hit and miss with USB to serial cables. Do the PCs have a serial header on the mainboard that you could use? You can then buy the necessary cable and plate to bring the serial port to the back of the PC. I see there isn't an entry in device manager for any port, but it could also be disabled in BIOS.

 

Meldrew

[peferraro]

To best help with your connection issue please contact customer support, here is the link https://support.prometheanworld.com/contact/ which will give you the phone number or you can fill out a form and they will email you. Please make sure you give a serial number for the board with the serial connection and also the one with the USB connection.

 

 

 

Thank you/Pam

[mthomas08]

One thing that solved all our IWB problems with USB cables is getting repeaters/active cables.

 

So far this has solved the majority of our isses (don't know if this will help).

[tinca492]

Hi

 

We have been in same situation in the past.

 

The only usb serial adaptor that we found worked consistently is this one based upon the FTDI chipset. USB 2.0 to RS232 Adaptors - works with Windows 7 (FTDI Chipset) USBNow.co.uk

 

or do the pc's have a slot available inside for a PCI board with standard RS232 ports? I think these boards are fairly low cost.

Edited August 10, 2017 by tinca492

[rich_tech]

We opted for ICT direct pcs with serial ports and cut them out when I was still at a school, that was easier, I would recommend thought star tech ones, esp with 64bit support, they did the job and we had to change a few going to windows 7 and then going full 64 bit

[Chris_Cook]

Two known problems are needing to manually re-install the driver to enable the serial driver (its not installed by default), and you need to be on an older version for it to automatically re-connect after a reboot (5.7 or 5.9 if I remember right).

 

There are a number of versions of the boards. The first ones were serial only, the second ones had serial and usb. Later ones only had usb.

 

The first ones have a black oval in the top left corner, the second and later ones that support usb have a smaller circle in the top left.

 

If you have the option on your boards, I'd recommend re-wiring them with usb to avoid all the serial issues, although you still need to power them via a Serial cable. The boards that support USB have a type B socket on the back, so you just need a standard usb cable - possibly with an active extension if over 5/10 meters.

Edited August 10, 2017 by Chris_Cook

[saudus]

Thank you for the suggestions.

 

I have got the boards working using KEYSPAN USA-19HS and USB-Serial CH340.

 

and by reinstalling an older activ driver V5.5.37.1.

 

Which gives you the option of USB+Serial on install.

 

thank you