You Are Here:

Troubleshooting the Front Panel Serial Port

The front panel or serial port can be used for SecureSync configuration or to obtain select data. The serial port is a standard DB9 female port. Communication with this port is via a standard DB9 F to DB9M serial cable (minimum pinout is pin 2 to 2, pin 3 to 3 and pin 5 to 5) connected to a PC running a terminal emulator program such as Tera Term or Microsoft HyperTerminal. The port settings of the terminal emulator should be configured as 9600, N, 8, 1 (flow control setting does not matter).

If the terminal emulator program does not display any data when the keyboard <Enter> key is pressed, either SecureSync is not powered up or there is a problem with the connection between SecureSync and the PC.

Using a multimeter, ring out the pins from one end of the serial cable to the other. Verify the cable is pinned as a straight-thru serial cable (pin 2 to 2, pin 3 to 3 and pin 5 to 5) and not as a null-modem or other pin-out configuration.

Disconnect the serial cable from SecureSync. Then, jumper (using a wire, paperclip or car key, etc.) pins 2 and 3 of the serial cable together while pressing any character on the PC’s keyboard. The character typed should be displayed on the monitor. If the typed character is not displayed, there is a problem with either the serial cable or with the serial COM port of the PC.

Refer to Setting up a Terminal Emulator for more information on using a terminal emulator software to communicate with SecureSync via serial port.