Is your modem running too slowly or are the serial transfers between your PC and handheld device taking too long? Your problems is most probably due to an unoptimized COM port configuration. Here's how you can improve the performance of your serial devices.

1. Go to System Properties by right-clicking on My Computer or via the Control Panel.
    
2. Select the Hardware tab and you will see the screen below :-

3. Look at the Device Manager section and click on the Device Manager button.

4. This brings up the Device Manager screen.

5. Open up the Ports (COM & LPT) device branch. Then you will see the list of COM and LPT ports in your system.

6. Select the COM port you want, right click and choose Properties. Or just double click the COM port.

7. In the screen that appears, click on the Port Settings tab. Note the default settings below.

8. First, increase the port's maximum transfer rate from the default 9600 bps to 115200 bps. This alone increases the serial bandwidth by 12X!

9. Next, enable Hardware Flow Control. It's the best option for a PC-to-serial device connection.

10. Finally, click on the Advanced... button.
     
11. In the screen that pops up, make sure both the Receive and the Transmit buffers are set to their maximum values. The screen below shows the optimal settings.

12. Now, close all screens by clicking OK on each screen and your COM port will now be running at a higher speed. Repeat the steps above for your other COM port.

If you have a comment or question about this tip, please post them here.

Thanks for your time and I hope this tip has helped you some! :)

Adrian Wong
Adrian's Rojak Pot
http://www.rojakpot.com/
http://www.adriansrojakpot.com/