Hi again,
Uh, Simran, if I read your comment correctly then maybe the loopback test you described would not
completely prove that the hardware was ok, because you said you only connected pins 2 and 3, and turned off the flow control. So what if
somehow it was just the flow control pins that were at fault? I'm not sure if it's possible for that to happen, or for that matter for some virus etc to grab just one pin of a port- it sounds somehow unlikely, but the whole situation sounds kinda weird anyway
The loopback circuit shown on the page Eric linked would be more complete.
And, if you can access the serial ports from hyperterminal, which is just a Windows program like any other, then this also implies that Windows can use the serial ports???
So in what way do the ports "not work"?
Can you maybe tell us
what you use all your serial ports for in your company? What
software do you NORMALLY use to communicate with what
hardware, or is that like some sort of a secret?
(BTW, I would still agree that the Linux LiveCD approach to testing the serial ports is a good idea, BUT you would need someone who has enough experience of using Linux to do that
It isn't the same as using Windows)
Finally, as for proving that there can't be viruses or malware on the systems because they have been formatted: REMEMBER! Not only is Torben's comment about "boot-sector" viruses a possibility, but also
maybe some of the software you reinstalled after formatting is "malware" already: IE, some programs are "trojan horse" programs that companies give away free because they will install other stuff on your computer at the same time, like dialers and spyware.
Free software in general isn't all a bad thing- many ordinary people (eg, me!) write programs just because they want to! But you have to worry when a
company seems to
only exist to give you something at no cost, because they might be up to no good. You see the difference, yes?
Perhaps you don't have any software like that there, though.