Adding a serial port

Thecus made this easy for us by including a 9-pin header on the S-ATA board. The pinout is the same as used on old AT-computers for the serial connection:


1 .. 2
3 .. 4
5 .. 6          Onboard header
7 .. 8
9 .
   ___
  /  .|1
 /.6  |
|    .|2
| .7  |
|    .|3        Standard DB-9 serial port pinout
| .8  |         (looking into the connector)
|    .|4
| .9  |
 \   .|5
  \___|

The connection is simple:

1 -> 1
2 -> 2
3 -> 3
4 -> 4
5 -> 5
6 -> 6
7 -> 7
8 -> 8
9 -> 9

You only need to connect pin 2 (RX), pin 3 (TX) and pin 5 (GND). The other pins are for hardware handshaking.

After you've installed the port all you need to do is connect a null modem cable from it to your PCs serial port and fire up a terminal emulator.

The default baudrate setting is 115200, 8n1.

Some pictures:

On later boards the 9-pin header is not factory installed, in that case you have to solder it in yourself.