IT-Tips

About COM ports

When configuring modems on a pc-compatible system, I/O and interrupt conflicts are quite common, especially with the mouse. To aid in removing such conflicts, the following are the ‘standard’ interrupt and I/O addresses for the main four com ports. Note that to get certain types of modems to work, especially the so-called “plug & play” models, you may have to experiment and use the ‘pseudo’ COM ports 5-8 by adjusting I/O addresses.

Com1, I/O Address – 03F8, Interrupt (IRQ) #4

Com2, I/O Address – 02F8, Interrupt (IRQ) #3

Com3, I/O Address – 03E8, Interrupt (IRQ) #4

Com4, I/O Address – 02E8, Interrupt (IRQ) #3

Increase laptop performance

Operating system swaps out part of the memory to the hard disk to free up the memory for more tasks. If you run several programs at once or have little RAM, these swapping can occur constantly, slowing the computer down.

Hard drive is the main power hungry equipment of a laptop. If you frequently access your hard drive, the more the laptop uses the battery. Naturally, it would seem that if you increase the RAM in your laptop, you would reduce the amount of memory swapping. This will increase your computer’s performance, and since your hard drive will be accessed less, could improve your battery life.