> Some basic info. The standard IBM hardware setup is:
 > COM1    IRQ4    3F8
 > COM2    IRQ3    2F8
 > COM3    IRQ4    3E8   *
 > COM4    IRQ3    2E8   *
 > * Note: COM3 and COM4 were not defined in the original IBM PC 
 > specification, so the last two are a "pseudo-standard". 

The new (old now ;) defacto-std (which does not conflict) is:

COM1 IRQ4   3F8
COM2 IRQ3   2F8
COM3 IRQ5   3E8
COM4 IRQ2/9 2E8

Most new Motherboard BIOS's will detect/declare COM ports set as per above.
It's a pity SB cards use IRQ5 as their default. Additional COM ports
especially for OS/2 systems should be setup as above if possible. If not
other IRQ's are fine, OS/2 handles it via command line parameters for
COM.SYS.

Note that setting more than one hardware device on the same IRQ on the PC
ISA bus (without hardware support for same) is an ERROR condition - one
which DOS (being single tasking) fairly safely ignored. OS/2 will NOT
ignore such a fault, and there's NO excuse for today's new machines being
shipped that way.

 > If all else fails, put the 586-133 back in. The P100 won't be 
 > much faster anyway.

I'd guess enough to notice. The Pentium (64bit) data path gives the system
some grunt under load.

Regards.

--- Msgedsq/2 2.2e