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[old-guy]

Recently I did the above hoping that AH would go, guess not. Tried Compatable Mode to no avail. Start screen comes on then no farther. I am trying to get a Dell Optiplex sx260 to be the driving unit. Any suggestions as it worked fine on the 98 platform. Do I have to upgrade the AH system to use the USB instead of the one serial port or...
T.I.A...

[Brian H]

In the older X10 Forums there was a thread on getting XP and the older AH to work.
I see you tried Compatibility mode Win98/ME. Also try in that area. Disable Visual Themes and Turn off advanced text services.
Also if you liked the sound effects when things where turned  on and off. I never got them to sound in XP

[Dan Lawrence]

XP is known for having COM port problems on some PC's when 98SE or ME were upgraded to XP. There is no USB interface for AH, the CM11A will only work on a COM port.

Your only choice is to upgrade to Active Home Pro and the CM15A USB interface.  AHP is available at http://www.x10.com/activehomepro/activehome-pro.html for $49.95.

AHP will import the .x10 files from AH, so all your modules, timers and macros will be there.

[JeffVolp]

XP is known for having COM port problems on some PC's when 98SE or ME were upgraded to XP. There is no USB interface for AH, the CM11A will only work on a COM port.

Actually, it is not XP that is causing the problem.  I run a dumpload of stuff on XP through my COM ports - even some stuff that goes back to the DOS era.  No problems with anything except the CM11A.  Don't blame it on XP.

[Brian H]

XP does have issues with AH. I kept loosing the comm link and had to reconnect all the time. The Compatibility mode did help me somewhat. While others have had no problems.

[Dan Lawrence]

I agree 100%.  JeffVolp was wrong to blame X10 for COM port problems with XP.  A lot of AH users (myself included) noted problems with AH loosing the COM port that that the CM11A was connected to. PC's that were upgraded from 9X to XP seemed to have the problems, where users with XP from the start appeared not to have the COM port problems.   

[JeffVolp]

XP does have issues with AH.

You have that backwards.  AH does have issues with XP.  I have some background on this issue that I did not share earlier.  I was a beta tester for both the CM11A and the CM14A.  The CM14A never made it to production, but it was similar to the present CM15A except that it used a serial interface like the CM11A.  Both of these devices exhibited many problems with the serial link during beta test.  It does not surprise me at all that a change in the OS has given it problems again.

Meanwhile all other serial devices:  Ocelot, Rain8, PROM programmer, 2 different microcontroller programmers, and even some factory floor ATE that I designed for the DOS era serial link all work fine under XP.  So is it an XP problem or an AH problem?

[Dan Lawrence]

My guess is it's a motherboard problem.  There's something in XP that gives some motherboards fits, but other motherboards don't. The motherboard in my tower must be one of the motherboards that XP doesn't work 100% as far as COM ports are concerned. The motherboard I have loved 9X and never gave any COM port problems, but as soon as the O/S was upgraded to XP, BLOOEY!!!

As an aside, when 9X and AH were on the system, I could never get the CM11A to work with AH version 1.42, so I stayed with 1.32. That worked fine. With 1.42, the interface refused to upload anything and 1.42 would corrupt the .x10 files (which I always backed up), so when I would go back to 1.32, everything was there. I still back up the .ahx files every time a change is made.

[JeffVolp]

The motherboard could be a contributor.  I use two motherboards with XP - An older MSI 6391 Pro4, and a newer ASUS 800..  Both were clean installs of XP.  One is SP1, the other SP2.  The SP1 is being used with the widest variety of serial devices.  Both ignore the CM11A.

Jeff

[old-guy]

Thanks to all for all of the input, once again plug & pray, but for the mOSt part it "the os" seems to do a much better job.
Strange happenings; start AH it wont respond to any thing, restart and all is fine .Go figure. for now it seems to be working.
An aside; always had a problem with response "operation" on certain receivers, noise I presume, did try a filter in the a/v circuit didn't always work. Moved the transceiver to another socket now the bedroom won't respond. So is it OK to use two transceivers to assure the minor coverage I want.
Once again thanks.
Ray.

[Brian H]

If they are the TM751 units. They could step on each other if both receive the same RF Remote commands. The TM751 has no powerline receiver in it so it can't tell if any other X10 traffic is on the powerline at the same time it is sending. Can't hurt to try it, just if it get worse try maybe different locations.

[Dan Lawrence]

Two transcievers (either TM751 or RR501 MUST control different housecodes, or as Brian H said, they will step on each other. I have two RR501 transcivers, one on housecode A, the other on housecode F. I had both on housecode A until my local X10 dealer advised me to get one or the other off A. The one in my kitchen was moved to housecode F  (for FOOD) and the two modules were moved as well.  No more problems.