No part of this publication may be reproduced, transcribed, stored in a retrieval system, translated into any language,
or transmitted in any from or by any means, photocopying, manual, or otherwise, without prior written permission from
SUNIX.
Disclaimer
SUNIX shall not be liable for any incidental or consequential damages resulting from the performance or use of this
equipment.
SUNIX makes no representations or warranties regarding the contents of this manual. Information in this manual has
been carefully checked for reliability; however, no guarantee is given as to the correctness of this content. In the
interest of continued product improvement, this company reserves the right to revise the manual or include change in
the specifications of the product described within it at any time without notice and without obligation to notify a ny
person of such revision or changes. The information contained in this manual is provided for general use by the
customers.
Trademarks
SUNIX is a registered trademark of SUNIX Group.
All other trademarks or registered marks in this manual belong to their respective owners.
Safety Information
1. Keep this User’s Manual for future reference.
2. Always read the safety information carefully.
3. Keep this equipment away from direct sunlight, or in humid or damp places.
4. Do not place this equipment in an unstable position, or on vibrating surface before setting it up.
5. Do not use or place this equipment near magnetic fields, televisions, or radios to avoid electronic
interface that affects device performance.
The Designed for Microsoft Windows 32/64-bit operation system WHQL logo
identifies products that meet Microsoft’s quality standards, SUNIX I/O products
carry with this logo and listed on Windows Catalog. WHQL logo includes below
operation system version
Microsoft Windows Client: Windows 2000 / XP / Vista / 7 (X86/X64)
Microsoft Windows Server: Windows 2003 / 2008 (X86/X64)
RS-232 Golden I/O series, a line of PCI Express Multi-port Serial
Communication Board, is designed to meet PCI Express Base Specification
Ver1.1 (Compliable with PCI Express General 2 Specification). Its can be
installed in virtually any available PC system and compatible with all major
operating systems. Users do not need to manually set jumpers to configure I/O
addresses and IRQ locations. Besides this board supports +5 or +12VDC of
power from each serial port via COM 1st and 9th pin output. It's convenient for
users connecting serial devices without addition external power supply.
These boards offer independent serial ports for connecting terminals, modems,
printers, scanners, cash registers, bar code readers, keypads, numeric
displays, electrical scales, data acquisition equipment, and other serial devices
for the PC and compatible systems. This board offers a reliable and high
performance solution for serial multi-port communications.
Thanks for purchasing SUNIX PCI Express Multi-Port Communication Board; it
is compatible with RS-232.V24 standard serial interfaces. User can expand
Multi RS-232 ports on PC-based system by installing in PCI Express x1, x2, x4,
x8 and x16 lane slots with +5 or +12VDC power output via COM port. Each
port has on-chip hardware and software flow control, a built-in 128-byte Tx/Rx
FIFO, and WHQL certificated device drivers. This board is designed with
SUNIX 16C950 UART controller and as well built with many of SUNIX
advanced features and technologies, making it the best solution for
commercial and industrial automation applications.
Package Checklist
Please check if the following items are present and in good condition upon
opening your package. Contact your vendor if any item is damaged or missing.
1. Hardware:
Serial Communication Board:
RS-232 PCI Express Multi-Port Communication Board × 1
Cable: (Depend on what product you bought)
* 4 ports PCI series: DB44M to 4 ports DB9/25 Male Cable × 1
Expands Multi RS-232 serial ports on the system
High performance SUNIX 16C950 compatible UART controller on-board.
Ultra low power consumption design for Green Environment.
Designed to meet PCI Express Base Specification Revision 1.1
Supports x1, x2, x4, x8, x16 (lane) PCI Express Bus connector keys.
Data transmission speeds up to 115.2Kbps (*921.6Kbps Optional).
Optional RS-232 signal or Power output to serial device.
Supports RS-232 serial COM ports with +5 or +12 VDC power output.
On-chip hardware auto flow control to guarantee no data loss.
Built-in ± 15KV ESD protection for all serial signals.
Plug-n-Play, I/O address and IRQ assigned by BIOS.
Certified by CE, FCC, RoHS, and Microsoft WHQL approval.
Microsoft Client
Microsoft Server
Microsoft Embedded XP Embedded / POS Ready 2009 / Embedded System 2009
Linux Linux 2.4.x / 2.6.x
DOS DOS
FreeBSD FreeBSD 5.3~5.5 / 6.0~6.4
XP / Vista / 7 (X86/X64)
2000 / 2003 / 2008 (X86/X64)
QNX QNX 6.3.2 / 6.4.0
IBM OS/2* WARP 3 / WARP 4
SCO UnixWare* UnixWare 7.1.3 / 7.1.4 Open Server 5.0.7 / 6.0
Sun Microsystems* Solaris 10
Note : “ * “ Supported by special inquiry.
Regulatory Approvals
Hardware
Software
EN55022 Class B, EN55024, EN61000-3-2, EN61000-3-3,
FCC Part 15 Class B, RoHS
Microsoft WHQL Windows
Microsoft Client: XP / Vista / 7 (X86/X64)
Microsoft Server: 2000 / 2003 / 2008 (X86/X64)
Environment
Operation
Temperature
Operation
Humidity
Storage
Temperature
The hardware installation of PCI Express serial boards is easy to carry out.
Before inserting the card into the PCI Express bus, please follow the detailed
steps given below to install the PCI Express serial board in your computer.
Safety First
Step 1: Turn your PC’s power off, and shut off the power to any peripheral.
Step 2: Remove the power plug from the plug socket.
To avoid damaging your system and boards, make sure your
PC’s power is turned off before installing PCI card.
Step 3: Remove the cover from the computer case.
Step 4: If fitted. Remove the metal cover plate on the rear of a free PCI-E slot.
Step 5: Insert PCI Express Multi-Port Communication Board into the free PCI
Express slot and screw it firmly on the bracket side.
Step 6: Place the cover back onto the computer.
Step 7: Insert the plug into the plug socket.
1. To avoid damaging, make sure to disconnect power connection before
wiring or disposing the Powered RS-232 Board.
2. In order to output enough power to your device, we strongly recommend
using 250W or above power supply in your system.
3. 4-pin power set should be plugged by power cable.
4. Does NOT use power Y-cable or sharing cable connect to 4-pin power
set on board; we strongly recommend connecting two 4-pin power sets
by independent power cables directly from power supply.
SAFTY FIRST
Power for the Powered RS-232 DB9 connectors are supplied from 4-pin
connector located on the PCB. This connectors allows a PC floppy type power
supply connector to provide the higher currents required by the power
peripherals.
In order to get efficient intake current output, there is one set of 4-pin power
connector designed on the board. The 4-pin power set draws both +12VDC
and +5VDC power output for Powered RS-232 device using.
The Powered RS-232 Board supports +12VDC @ 2A, and +5VDC @ 2A
maximum total 34W using sustained with 200W system power supply.
Note:
If system's power supply can not provide the efficient power to serial
devices, it will cause your PC system unstable or unexpected reboot.
This Powered RS-232 Board supports DC power output to device feature.
User can select +5V or +12VDC power output to serial device over DB9 1st and
9th pin. Please follow the jumper setting before using for each COM port.
CAUTION
1. Be sure to confirm your serial device power voltage sourcing and pin
number to prevent any further problem.
2. Before plugging this board into your system, please carefully check
the power output jumper setting and hardware installation steps to
prevent any damages.
3. Wrong operation damages connected serial device. SUNIX is NOT
responsible for user’s wrong operation, including power voltage
selected mistake, wrong jumper settings, or carelessness cable wiring.
4. Do NOT cross the jumper settings over different pin define.
Below setting is WRONG.
User can read below silkscreen printing on the PCB. Each COM port has two
jumper sets for the first and ninth pin for DB9 male connector. User can select
standard RS-232 signal (system default), +5VDC, or +12VDC power output on
the assigned pin.
COM 1 1st-pin COM 1 9th-pin
The First pin option on COM ONE The Ninth pin option on COM ONE
This chapter provides the pin assignments for SUNIX PCI Express Multi-Port
Communication Board, as well as the pin assignments for the optional
accessories.
After installing the RS-232 PCI Express Multi-Port Communication Board in
your system successfully, please follow the step by step software installation
guide to confirm how to install appropriate driver and configure the serial port
settings.
The driver for PCI Express serial board supports Windows and Linux operating
systems, and you can select your requirement in the following chapter:
The following topics covered in this chapter:
Windows Driver Installation
Windows Driver Uninstallation
Linux Driver Installation
Verify Installation
Please refer to following instructions to install the driver for the first time under
Windows operation system. You will need to plug the board in an available PCI
Express slot first, before installing the driver.
(1) After the board is physically installed and the PC boots up, system will
detect the PCI Express Serial card and prompt for driver installation wizard,
please choose cancel.
(2) Put CD driver bound with product in your CD / DVD ROM drive.
Please select autorun.exe., then select “Driver Installation”.
This installation guide describes the procedures to install the PCI serial board
in Linux kernel 2.4.x and 2.6.x. Please refer to “snx_Vx.x.x.x.tar.gz” for driver
installation detail in CD Driver (Linux folder) directory.
: \ PCI_IO \ Linux
(1) Driver install
Please create a directory under root directory, e.g /temp, do commands:
# cd /
# mkdir temp
After get driver file "snx_Vx.x.x.x.tar.gz". Copy file to /temp
directory, then extract and install, do commands:
# cp snx_Vx.x.x.x.tar.gz /temp
# cd /temp
# tar xvfz snx_Vx.x.x.x.tar.gz
# cd /temp/snx
# make clean ; make install
*************************************************************
* If system is Suse 9.0 and errors occur when
* "make clean ; make install", do commands:
*
* # cd /usr/src/linux/
* # make cloneconfig
* # make dep
*
* then do "make clean ; make install" again in /temp/snx
*************************************************************
Load driver module, do command:
# modprobe snx
or
# insmod /temp/snx/driver/snx.ko (snx.o for kernel 2.4)
Check driver module, do command:
# lsmod | grep snx
Unload driver, do command:
# rmmod snx
(2) Device node creation
Each serial port has one device node which is named "ttySNX?",
maximum up to 32 serial ports.
Each parallel port has two device node which is name "lp?" and
"parport?". This step will backup lp2~lp3 and parport2~parport3
to lp?.bak and parport?.bak in /dev for your system first. Then,
create lp2~lp3 and parport2~parport3 in /dev for sunix driver,
maximum up tp 2 parallel ports.
This setp will be done when do "make clean ; make install", if
device nodes aren't in /dev, do commands:
# cd /temp/snx/snxmknod
# ./snxmknod
This will create device nodes in /dev.
If there are more than two boards installed, serial port device
This chapter shows all Serial COM port settings that user came with usually,
such as COM port number, FIFO length(size), baud rate, IO address and
others.
The following topics covered in this chapter:
Configure Serial Port Settings
COM Port Number Settings
COM I/O Resource
FIFO Settings
Advanced Settings
Under Port Number, select a COM number to assign to the serial port. Click
“OK” to approve the settings for the selected port.
Note: In order to prevent system resource conflict, do not select “in use” port.
COM I/O Resource
User can read the COM “IO Range” and “IRQ” located in system by selecting
COM port.
IRQ and I/O address is automatically assigned by the mainboard PCI BIOS
automatically (before COM card driver installing). User can NOT assign legacy
ISA address (3F8, 3E8, 2F8, 2E8) for the specific COM port. But for IRQ
setting, user can set specific IRQ value for this PCI bus slot via mainboard’s
BIOS settings (not via SUNIX driver). But all COM ports will share one IRQ
value.
Select an Rx FIFO Trigger and Tx FIFO Size.
The default Rx FIFO Trigger is 112 bytes. The default Tx FIFO Size is 128
bytes. Click “Set to All” to change this setting for all serial ports on the board.
Then click “OK” to save the settings.
Receive FIFO interrupt trigger level:
When the level of data in the receiver FIFO reaches this value, a receiver data
interrupt is triggered.
Transmit FIFO interrupt trigger level:
When the level of data in the transmit FIFO falls below this value, a transmitter
interrupt is triggered. Setting this value to zero will not trigger an interrupt until
the transmitter is completely idle.
The FIFO trigger levels can be fine tuned to gain optimum performance,
depending on system performance, baud rate used, levels of serial traffic etc.
User can control RS-232 communication in Advanced Port Control page
through “Advanced” settings.
Clock Rate
This is the “Data Rate" value for on board crystal frequency of input clock. The
baud rate can optionally be adjusted according to the data rate required. The
clock pre-divisor is used to divide the input clock prior to baud rate generation.
This parameter must matches with the oscillator (crystal) frequency on the
board. System default is 14745600 Hz. We do NOT recommend for
modification without SUNIX instruction. User can click “Defaults” button back
to manufactory settings.
This chapter shows some problems that user came with usually. Also you can
check it if the PCI Express serial board can not work properly in your system
after following hardware and software installation steps. In addition, you could
contact with us for detail technical product information.
In this appendix, we cover the following topics.
Troubleshooting
Product Family
Contact Information
1. System fails to find the PCI Express serial board or COM port.
A: It may cause by following issue:
a. The board is not properly plugged into the PCI Express slot.
b. Please clean the golden finger.
c. The PCI Express slot is defective. Please try other slots until you find one
that works.
d. The mainboard does not have an available IRQ for the PCI Express
serial board. Enter the PC.s BIOS and make sure an IRQ setting is
available in the PCI/PnP settings.
e. The board itself might be defective. You can try another mainboard
testing this board working or not.
2. There is a blue screen when I entry operation system.
A: The possible reason is an IRQ or I/O address conflict with other PCI
Express or PCI bus adapters, such as LAN or serial boards, or with the
system BIOS. Refer to the corresponding problem in the previous FAQ for
solutions.
3. There are some exclamation marks in device manager and serial ports
can not work properly.
A: It caused by the wrong driver installing or hardware settings. Please turn off
your computer firtly and re-install hardware and software, especially
re-install the correct driver.
4. Should I enable auto flow control features?
A: Enable Auto CTS/RTS Flow Control means the CTS/RTS flow control is
controlled by hardware automatically. System will be more stable if the
function is enabled. Please make sure your serial device and cable wiring
before enabling the hardware flow control function.
5. How large FIFO length I should set?
A: FIFO (First-in-First-out) buffers are used to reduce the frequency of interrupt
processes for UART chips. The size of the buffer will determines the
number of times the cards need to interrupt the computer’s CPU in order to
process a string of data. With larger FIFO buffer size; there is more data
flow and less interruption to the CPU, therefore allowing the CPU to be free
to handle other more crucial tasks.
Set the Receive/Transmit Buffer to higher value will get faster performance
because the interrupts will be reduced, but the time for interrupt service
routine will become shorter. The receive buffer overflow will be easily
happened if the CPU speed is not enough to handle. If the system is not
stable, select the lower value to correct problems.
SUNIX provides kinds of RS-232/422/485 interface cards for customer
selection, including PCI Express, PCI, PCI/104, CardBus, and ExpressCard.
Please refer to the product family table for reference.
Customer satisfaction is our number one concern, and to ensure that
customers receive the full benefit of our products, SUNIX services has been
set up to provide technical support, driver updates, product information, and
user’s manual updates.