non plug and play device on com port?

Question.

Charles Brooks' A+ book says the following in chapter 8:

"To install a non PnP device on a specific COM port (that is, COM2),
you must first disable that port in the system's CMOS settings in
order to avoid a device conflict. If not, the system might try to
allocate that resource to some other device because it has no way of
knwing that the non PnP device requires it."

If the BIOS won't know to automatically allocate resources to a device
unless it's PnP, how does the device ever get recognized? I don't
understand why disabling a comport is gonna help you get the system to
allocate resources to a non-PnP device. And are we talking about the
BIOS or the OS?

Is he implying that I should disable the port in the CMOS, plug in the
device, install the Windows drivers, then re-enable the port in CMOS?
If so, why would that help?

David

David K

David K wrote:
> Question.
>
> Charles Brooks' A+ book says the following in chapter 8:
>
> "To install a non PnP device on a specific COM port (that is, COM2),
> you must first disable that port in the system's CMOS settings in
> order to avoid a device conflict. If not, the system might try to
> allocate that resource to some other device because it has no way of
> knwing that the non PnP device requires it."

never heard so much rubbish....
the only thing i can think of it is that it means if you wanted it install
another device useing the same resources as com2 (an ISA internal modem
normaly)
where disabling the com port in the bios settings would be the way to go

it's just badly worded i think
also, some older bios's don't properly disable com ports, all the do is
don't allocate resourses to it, which would work in the days before pnp os's
for example, i disable a com port, bios doesn't give it resources, windows
loads of see's a pnp device with no resources and does something about it

Geoff