Some years ago I bought a PEX2S5531P serial/parallel PCIe card. This was installed in a Core2 Duo machine running 32-bit Windows 10 and worked very well. Recently I upgraded this machine to an i5-7500 running 64-bit Windows 10 Pro.
Initially this refused to acknowledge the PEX card and would not install it via a scan for new hardware.
I downloaded the most recent drivers from the web site and attempted to instal the card using the provided Setup routine. This appeared to instal one serial port but under ‘Properties’ the error message “This device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for the device (Code 31). Object Name not found”. An attempt to instal the parallel port gave the error message “The device cannot start (Code 10). Insufficient system resources exist to complete the API”.
I then attempted to instal the card in the traditional way via Device Manager. I pointed the installer at \Windows\Windows8-10\64Bit\StnMF and obtained identical results to those set out above. I then tried \Windows\Previous Driver Versions\64Bit\StnMF with no change.
I tried asking Windows to update the driver but it asserted that the most suitable drivers were already installed.
All suggestions gratefully received.
John
Hello @ Segillum,
Thank you for posting on the Startech.com Community. I am sorry to hear you are having difficulty with our PEX2S5531P.
To help determine our next steps, could I please ask for the make and model of the newer system you are using our card with, or the motherboard if you have it available? Can I also clarify when it had been last working in the previous machine you mentioned?
If you have not already done so, I would recommend checking with the manufacturer of your computer or motherboard for any BIOS or firmware updates as those can be of some help in situations where PCIe cards are experiencing issues.
If your computer has another PCIe slot available, it would also be good to test another slot if possible.
I look forward to hearing back from you.
Lukas T
Hi Lukas and thank you for replying so promptly.
To help determine our next steps, could I please ask for the make and model of the newer system you are using our card with, or the motherboard if you have it available? Can I also clarify when it had been last working in the previous machine you mentioned?
It’s an HP290 G1 manufactured in 2017. The motherboard revision is 8350 1.00. The Windows version is 19045.4717 and all updates have been completed. The PEX card was working perfectly until last week. I just reinstalled it in the older PC and it seems to be working normally.
If you have not already done so, I would recommend checking with the manufacturer of your computer or motherboard for any BIOS or firmware updates as those can be of some help in situations where PCIe cards are experiencing issues.<
I’ve just run HP Support Assistant and the only available update was to a Conexant driver. The BIOS is reported as v2.46 dated 3/24 which I assume is the most recent. No other problems were reported. I have also run the HP hardware diagnostics tester and this also reports no faults. I checked Windows Update to see whether any other drivers were available but nothing was found. I have run PNPenum but the results seem to indicate that the machine cannot find the drivers for the card.
If your computer has another PCIe slot available, it would also be good to test another slot if possible.<
Unfortunately it only has the one PCIe slot
I hope this helps but please let me know if there’s any other information you need.
John
Further to this, I just tried an Asix dual-serial card in the HP290’s PCIe slot. This loaded without issue using the ‘Setup’ app privided with the drivers and is working normally.
Hello @Segillum,
Thank you for responding and especially with testing the PEX2S5531P with the older PC to confirm it is still working there.
Could you please try installing the driver found inside of the “Previous Driver Version” folder in the driver download from our website? Sometimes certain computers may work better using a previous driver version.
If this does not resolve the issue, I would next recommend checking in your computer’s BIOS settings if you have a setting available to set the PCIe slot to a specific version of PCIe rather than automatically detecting the version to use. Different computer manufacturers will give this setting different names so I unfortunately cannot say what it might be called specifically. While it is not available on all computers, if you do have a setting like this available it is worth trying as it can help sometimes with strange issues with PCIe cards.
Please let me know how these steps work out for you.
Lukas T
Could you please try installing the driver found inside of the “Previous Driver Version” folder in the driver download from our website? Sometimes certain computers may work better using a previous driver version.<
Unfortunately the results are the same, namely Code 31 for the serial ports and Code 10 for the parallel port.
The Asix twin-serial card I installed and which works normally seems to be based on the same chipset as the PEX2S5531P. Looking at the Device Manager results suggests that when trying to instal the latter, the system cannot find the associated PCI\VEN reference. Is it possible that something in the setup routine or the driver files is amiss?
If this does not resolve the issue, I would next recommend checking in your computer’s BIOS settings if you have a setting available to set the PCIe slot to a specific version of PCIe rather than automatically detecting the version to use. Different computer manufacturers will give this setting different names so I unfortunately cannot say what it might be called specifically. While it is not available on all computers, if you do have a setting like this available it is worth trying as it can help sometimes with strange issues with PCIe cards.<
I stepped carefully through the BIOS options for this machine but there doesn’t appear to be anything along those lines.
Would it help if I ran PCIenum and supplied the results?
Best wishes, John
Further to my last, I’m no expert but as far as I can see the .INF file for the Asix 99xx cards doesn’t contain an entry for the 2S1P variant. Could this be the issue?
Hello @Segillum,
I do not expect that this is an issue with the drivers, as you have said that the PEX2S5531P works in another computer that is also running Windows 10 and that computer would be using the same drivers.
There is not an entry specific to the PEX2S5531P as the drivers are provided to us by Asix for use with all cards that use the same MCS9901CV-CC chipset. The package includes the drivers for both the serial and parallel ports.
From what you have described it unfortunately seems like this is an unexpected incompatibility between PEX2S5531P and the HP290 G1. While we expect to work with any desktop computer, there is always a chance of unforeseen compatibilities.
Sadly, there are not any other steps that I could recommend to help resolve this issue. I know this is not the answer you were hoping to hear and apologize for the inconvenience.
Lukas T
The other machine runs 32-bit Windows. The modern machine runs 64-bit Windows. Hence my suspicion that this is a driver issue peculiar to the latter.
Is it possible that Star Tech’s technical support could offer any further assistance?
John
Hello @Segillum,
After discussing with our team and investigating further, we were able to confirm previous reports of compatibility issues between the first revision of PEX2S5531P, as well as other cards that used the same chipset, with certain computers, including the HP 290 G1. As you mentioned this was purchased some time ago, I expect that you likely have a first revision card. However this issue was resolved with newer revisions.
I apologize that I had missed this previously as I was looking into this issue for you. We will be reaching out to you directly to look into replacement options.
Lukas T
OK, thanks very much.
John