Using Putty for serial connection

Question

I am attempting to enable web-management functionality on my Dell PowerConnect2824.

From what I can tell by reading the manual I need to connect via the serial port to enable web functionality.

I picked up a serial to usb connector and installed the drivers onto my Win7 machine. It now shows up in my Device Manager under Ports 'Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port (COM5).

However when I fire up Putty and choose 'serial' and enter COM5 the resulting terminal window simply hangs.

The PowerConnect uses VT100 protocol which from what I understand Putty recognizes. My serial settings are as follows:

Serial: COM5
Speed: 9600
Data bits: 8
Stop bits: 1
Parity: None
Flow control: XON/XOFF

Thanks any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

Most switches that I have worked with do not use any flow control, so I double checked the Dell PowerConnect and it indeed does not use flow control.

From page 33 of the manual: 9600 baud 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, and no parity Set flow control to none Under Properties, select VT100 for Emulation mode

Answer 2

Try pressing Enter after connecting. As far as I know, there's no way for the device to know when PuTTY opens the serial port; an Enter keypress would serve as a "attention" message and you should receive a reply.

Answer 3

This sounds stupid, but did you make sure that your serial to USB cable is also a null-modem cable?

I've had the same issue, until I figured out that I had to get a small null-modem bridge in order to actually communicate with a server with a serial console.

Answer 4

You probably need to read the switch's manual to see what serial options need to be set for Flow Control, Parity, etc. It should be in there somewhere.

Answer 5

For those curious about how serial putty v0.60 “ALWAYS” fails: Putty v0.60 running on Vista (core 2 Duo 2.2Ghz, 4GB) connected to Linux 115200bps, translation UTF-8, running MC (Midnight Commander). Keep alternatively pressed your keyboard up and down arrows, this will generate full-duplex traffic; continuous outgoing up/down arrow commands and continuous incoming screen refresh while directories and files scroll. In less than 60 sec putty will stop sending command and updating the screen. If I restart putty on the same COM the Linux session is still alive and working. I’m always using MC under serial connection and I was struggling with this putty issue for long time.