Rosewill 2 Ports PCIe Serial Card Model RC-301EU

Pros: None

Cons: Causes Win7 x64 to lock up constantly (within 10 minutes of boot). As soon as driver is uninstalled, computer runs great. I've tried the driver on the CD, the driver on the website, and the driver from the chipset manufacturer and none of these solve the problem.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,
Will this still happen if you install the card on a clean installation of Windows? There may be a software conflict in your current installation. We haven't seen many of the issues that you are describing since this product was launched in 2008. It may just come down to a software conflict in your current installation of Windows. If you are still having issues after that, please contact the Rosewill support team either via phone at 800-575-9885 or via email at techsupport@rosewill.com.
Thanks,
Rosewill Customer Care

Pros: Easy install for adding more serial ports

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: Bought alot of these in the last six months and have not had a failure yet (knock on wood). Easy install on Dell boxes running Windows 7.

Pros: Provides extra serial ports.

Cons: Two of these cards destroyed TWO Intel DQ45CB motherboards!

One out two cards ordered did not work in one motherboard, but worked in a different computer. Returned/exchanged for RMA. 2nd one arrived and installed then killed my first motherboard. Received another motherboard not knowing what had happened. Took it slow in swapping out the MB, and it worked without these cards installed. At the point of installing both of these cards, the computer would not POST or boot anymore again! Removed the cards and the computer was still dead. Something about having 2 cards installed killed the MB, or the 2nd RMA'd card was bad.

In between my first motherboard and 2nd, I tried both these in a Dell Dimension 4700, and they worked. So I'm not sure who to blame, the RC-301EU or the Intel DQ45CB. But I do know 1 out 2 of these cards was faulty.

Other Thoughts: I ended up using just the 4 port RC-305E card which I did not see before ordering 2 of these.

Pros: No problem once I got a new unit

Cons: The first unit I received was an obvious return--no low profile brackets (which I needed) and the antistatic bag had previously been opened. No idea if fault lies with NewEgg or Rosewill. Anyway, I RMA'd the first unit and the replacement arrived quickly and had all the parts and it works fine.

Other Thoughts: I followed "Techie's" directions, below--don't worry if Win7 fails automatic detection.

Pros: It fit with all the other cards I have stuck to the mother board. This is used to run a braille stylus for the blind to read whats written on the screen. I also installed a double parallel port from star tech. Those run the braille printers.

Cons: None.

Other Thoughts: I am running a asrock 890fx deluxe, amd athlon 2 x4 640, 3.0ghz, 160gb hard drive, G.skill ripjaws ddr3 2x4gb, gigabyte 7100 gs video card.

Pros: I've already reviewed this product, but I wanted to point out that this card seems to use the PCI Express frequency as the base for serial communication frequency. This means if you overclock PCIe frequency too high your serial communications start becoming unreliable. You need to keep the PCIe frequency as close to 100MHz as you can for the baud rates to be correct.

Cons: Note that there is no onboard crystal. This confirms that it probably uses PCIe frequency to determine baud rate.

Other Thoughts: Still an awesome card, but I was having problems with it and figured out why when configuring my overclock.

Pros: Serial ports work. Windows 7 supported.

Cons: I'm using a shutter controller which is connected to one serial port and a Z-drive controller connected to the other serial port. Shutter requires null modem cable and the Z-drive straight. If I try to boot the computer with Win 7 and the null modem cable is connected, the computer will not boot!!! The second I disconnect the cable, booting process continues as normal. When the Windows has finished the boot process, I can reconnect the null modem cable and everything works normally.

Other Thoughts: I'm guessing whoever wrote the driver is waiting for the port to be in a certain state which will never happen if the null modem cable is connected. When I disconnect, the port passes the test and the booting process moves on. Why on earth is there such a loop in the driver? Talk to your programmer.

Pros: This card rocks! I use serial ports for custom electronics projects (made a custom LED Fan controller with color changing LED's controlled by the serial port). My i7 build didn't have a serial port so I got this to add serial ports (I plan on using one internally and one externally, so the ports being disconnectable is a plus). Works fine with the provided CD in Win7 x64 and works perfectly without any additional drivers in Ubuntu 10.04 (and 9.10 when I tested it). Plenty of configurable settings in Windows. It is also tiny and fits into even the PCIe slot in front of the northbridge heatsink on my Gigabyte motherboard.

Cons: None really, it's a great, affordable, powerful card that is well supported. The only issue is that it isn't supported by default in Windows 7, you need the drivers CD, but no big deal. I was really worried about Linux compatibility but it works great and both ports are detected properly.

Other Thoughts: I plan on building an RGB light controller for the inside of my Antec 900 case using Atmel microcontrollers. The serial port will be used to send in color and brightness for each LED and I will probably use it as a very awesome music visualizer. With this card using pin headers instead of soldered-on-card ports, I can remove the second port and make a pin connector to connect devices inside the PC for a clean install.

Pros: Works on Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Cons: none yet

Other Thoughts: The driver CD that came with the PCIe card now has signed drivers for Windows 7 x64. The Found New Hardware wizard did not run when I first installed the card, but once it was recognized in Device Manager ('scan for hardware changes'), I selected Update Driver and Have Disk. When the computer scanned the disk, the drivers were installed, and both ports work great.

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Other Thoughts: More info about my other review:

At the moschip website, you'll have create a new account. It will require you to enter a company name and your title. You must enter *something* into these fields. As long as your e-mail address is valid, you will receive account info. After that, log into the site and download the WHQL-Vista driver to get this working in Windows 7.