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We have a device that has a male serial port on it to access its console. We don't have a USB-to-female serial cable. I'm trying to see if I can quickly get access to the console, without having to order a USB-to-female serial cable.

We do have a female serial-to-ethernet cable (looks like this), and an ethernet-to-USB adapter. So I connected the female serial connector on the cable to the device, and the ethernet connector on the cable into the ethernet-to-USB adapter. Then I plugged the adapter into a USB port on a PC running Windows.

On the PC, it detected a "AX88179" which showed up in Device Manager under "Other devices" with a question mark. So I installed the driver for the adapter, and now it shows up as a network adapter (ASIX AX88179 USB 3.0 to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter). No additional COM port showed up under the Ports.

Is there any way for me to access the device's serial console port? I have PuTTY installed on the PC, but since there's no new COM port for this connection, I don't know how I would access the console.

pacoverflow
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1 Answers1

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You'll have to order an USB-to-serial adapter, that is, an active device, not a cable.

USB, Ethernet, and serial ports use very very different protocols, also on the physical level (voltages, timings, other electrical characteristics), so you cannot just have "cables" between them.

Your "female serial-to-ethernet cable" looks like a D-Sub-to-RJ cable (unless there's some chip hidden somewhere), for whatever purpose that was used.

But unless there's a chip hidden somewhere, it won't do "Ethernet", and if it did, it would be the first device I hear about that can do something like this and looks like a cable.

ethernet-to-USB adapter. [...] it detected a "AX88179"

So this one has a chip in it, and you can attach it to a network. If you put your D-Sub-to-RJ cable into it, you'll just have distorted Ethernet signals on whatever pins of the D-Sub plug they are connected to. Which isn't going to help.

dirkt
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