Hack your Dell laptop to talk to your Polar Heart Rate Monitor without the IR module (Jim Carson) November 15, 2003

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Hack your Dell laptop to talk to your Polar Heart Rate Monitor without the IR module

(11/15/03 update!) The purpose of this page is to describe in step by step mode how to configure a Dell laptop (and certainly other Dells) running Windows 2000 or XP Professional to allow one to connect a Polar S series heart rate monitor via the embedded Infrared port. Screen shots are for W2k, but the procedure is identical for Windows XP. In other words, you won't have to purchase the additional IR interface module. This has been verified on a Dell Latitude C800 and Inspiron 8500 in standalone mode or connected to a docking station. It should work with any of the C-series and the Inspiron series, as they're the same IR chip. Special Thanks

Patrick Pichon provided a lot of the basis for this. Mike Johnson,who verified this works on Windows XP pro with his Inspiron 8500 The numerous beautiful woman whom we could not share PowerPoint documents with on the bus because our IR ports were configured this way.

Jim Carson

Here are the steps to follow :

download that zipped file MSPORTS.inf (4.8k) file for Windows 2000. (This is a zipped version of a plain text file. Save it to your disk, view the text in notepad or vi to convince yourself it's not nefarious. Compare it to your existing file if you wish.) I'm assuming your default windows directory is on the C: drive and in \winnt. You can verify this by printing the %WINDIR% environment variable: echo %WINDIR%.
Back up the old MSPORTS.inf file. You should archive the other IRDA-related files:
c: cd \winnt\inf mkdir \backup copy *irda*.* \backup del *irda*.* copy msports.inf \backup
Copy the MSPORTS.inf file you downloaded in step #1 to \winnt\inf. There are three pairs of files (six total) on my machine: irdaalif.inf, irdasmc.inf, netirda.inf (and the associated .PNF). Deleting these files is essential for disabling the plug and play option for this device. If you leave these files in place, Windows will reconfigure the IR port as before.
Remove all Infrared Device references
Start -->> Settings -->> Control Panel -->> System Click on the Hardware tab Click on the Device Manager button (On XP, this is Start -->> Settings -->> Control Panel -->> Administrative Tools -->> Computer Management -->> System Tools -->> Device Manager) Scroll down to Infrared devices (before "Keyboards") and expand this by clicking the little "+" next to the line. Right click on the infrared device and select "Uninstall"
Reboot your computer.
When it reboots, enter the BIOS setup menu (press F2 when the machine powers up). Page through using Alt-P to the Infrared port. Ensure that it's on COM2 and "Slow" mode. (11/15/03: Some machines like the Inspiron 8500, do not have a "slow" mode. If yours does not, don't worry.)
After rebooting you will see a new COM port into the device manager (under "Ports" now) named Generic Ir Serial Port (COM2)
Launch the Polar Software
Go into Options -> Preferences -> Hardware
Configure to the accordingly COM2, use option to select WIN95. (9/2004: the update switches menu options and the Win95 is no longer present.)

Limitations:

You have to place the Polar monitor very close to the IR port, within 8 cm (3") for it to pick up the signal.

Enabling the directIR protocol will deactivate the IRDA protocol. What this means is if you use your IR port for other functions, like programming your refrigerator or exchanging Excel documents with random beautiful women on the train, you'll break that (or make it much slower).

Please note that Polar, your hardware vendor, me, and especially Microsoft do not support this. Therefore if you don't feel competent at editing your system configuration files, please buy the separate IR interface. It's forty bucks, probably less on ebay.

Jim Carson Cinco de Mayo 2002, Revised 15 November 2003
More Information For more information, you will find here after the hints I found on the Internet (thanks to http://www.logomanager.co.uk/irhelp/ ) to allow us to use the embedded Infrared of our laptop with the Polar S series under W2K (without any W95 limitation as Polar stated). If you are running WIN95 and it doesn't work, I suggest you to go to Polar and/or to their Web site where they address Infrared Issues on 95. Possible Limitations

That have been tested on an HP Omnibook 900B and Dell Latitude C800 and Inspiron 8500 laptops with an onboard IR adapter. There might be some cases where the IR adapter might not work.

You have to hold the Polar monitor very close to the IR port, within 8cm (3 inches) for it to pick up a signal.

Not all computers/notebooks can be setup in DirectIR mode, especially newer notebooks have so-called 'PCI-Based IRDA Ports'. If you have such a notebook, then you're outta luck because these will NOT work in DirectIR mode! Here is a list of such notebooks:

Toshiba Libretto 100CT, 110CT

Toshiba Port�g� 320, Port�g� 3xxx Series, Port�g� 7xxx Series

Toshiba Satellite 3xx Series, Satellite 2xxx Series, Satellite 4xxx Series

Toshiba Satellite Pro 490/490X

Toshiba Tecra 550, Tecra 750CDT/CDM/DVD, Tecra 780, Toshiba Tecra 8xxx Series

Useful links:

Dave Bailey's linux and perl software interfaces to the S710

IRCOMM2000 Drivers can be found at http://www.ircomm2k.de/

IRCOMM2000 FAQ can be found at http://studbimb.tuwien.ac.at/~e9526586/.ircomm/faq_eng.htm

DirectIR setup for Nokia can be found at http://www.logomanager.co.uk/irhelp/

DirectIR for Nokia (in German) can be found at http://www.lukasbit.de/computer/ir_directir.php

9/13/2004: Here are two screenshots that may help clear things up. (Or maybe not.) This is what the generic IR port looks like under Windows 2000. There aren't any other really interesting options to show you, but I suspect that if you don't see this "generic IR serial port" appear, you'll want to investigate the computer's configuration. This is the combination of menu options I have selected from the Polar Software. The screenshot is taken from version 4.02.034. I'm using the S710 receiver, the much older version. I don't know if the S710i, S720i or S725i have IRDA support, but the 710i and 720i are listed under the same pulldown. ~~(If someone finds out, please let me know.)~~

Posted by Jim on November 15, 2003 | Permalink

20 Comments:

scott chase wrote on (November 15, 2003 5:14 AM)

Will this work with Dell C800 running XP.

thanks for the hard work!

carson wrote on (November 15, 2003 9:41 AM)

> Will this work with a Dell C800 running XP?
Yes, it will. I've updated the documents, however there appear to be no substantially different changes involved. (Thanks to Mike Johnson for the changes.)

James L. Jones wrote on (November 20, 2003 9:23 AM)

How do i know if my polar heart rate monitor emits IR?

I have the cheapo $80 model)

I'd like to interface it to a basic stamp computer with a big lcd screen because I cannot read the screen without glasses and I don't like to wear reading glasses when i exercise>

carson wrote on (November 20, 2003 11:01 AM)

> How do i know if my polar heart rate monitor emits IR?

The IR feature appears to be available only on the high end models like the S710/720 and S810. The mid-range, like the S510, have "sonic link," which picks up chirps from your computer speakers to program it.

(On this picture, there is a little red oval at the top of the watch where the IR port emits.)

Most models will beep when you're in/out of a specific zone, which might be a better option.

Doug wrote on (November 28, 2003 4:47 PM)

Jim, you're way out of my league. I'm bummed because I just paid $320 for a Polar s720i and IR interface. But I installed the software, then plugged in the IR interface, and it won't connect. The device manage properties for the USB interface says

"The NTKERN.VXD device loader(s) for this device could not load the device driver. (Code 2)
To fix this, click Update Dreive to update the device driver."

But when I click update, it can't find anything but the driver that's there. What the #?#!@ is going on??

Thanks for any help.

Doug

carson wrote on (November 28, 2003 8:49 PM)

Hi Doug, are you running Windows 98/ME? Or another version? For 98/ME, there are a few tech notes (e.g., 299264 that suggest renaming and re-extracting Uhcd.sys, Usbhub.sys, and Usbd.sys from the Windows OS CD.

Doug wrote on (November 29, 2003 8:04 PM)

I'm running Dell-installed Windows Me on a Dell 4100. My Dell Windows disk didn't include those file or any USB drivers. I installed the Polar Software on my Win2000 machine at work. It wasn't able to find the driver, but I pointed it to the win2000 folder in the Polar directory, and it worked.

Then I deleted all my USB drivers on my home machine and tried to refresh them. The machine hung. I rebooted and the OS said it couldn't find PolarUSB.sys. I pointed it to the win98 Polar folder (?!#; there wasn't any Me folder), and it worked.

So, basically, I don't know what the hell I did, but somehow I got it working. Hmmm. Cycling sure is a lot more fun than installing Polar HRM software.

Thanks for your encouragement to keep fiddling. Wishing you much good cycling.

Doug

tim wrote on (December 24, 2003 3:34 AM)

Hi there,

Yeap same problem as Doug regarding the polar s720i infra red interface. I've just paid out for this and was was trying to get it work on my Sony Vaio GRT Series lap top. again when connecting the device it recognises it in the hardware manager but when it comes to download it say communictaion port can't be opened.....what you suggest above, will it work with the Sony Vaio GRT Series lap top?????

merry xmas

tim

tim wrote on (December 24, 2003 3:36 AM)

sorry its more info its running Windows xp professional os....

thanks tim

carson wrote on (December 24, 2003 7:48 AM)

Hi Tim, this sounds like it is configuration issue in the Polar software, specifically, it's using the incorrect port for the infrared device. Check the windows device manager for the specific port it's using (e.g., COM2, COM3, etc)

In the polar software, select:

Options -> Preferences
Click on the second (Hardware) tab
Set the "IR Communication Port" to the appropriate value.

You can do trial and error if you need to guess, it won't harm anything.

Todd LoFrese wrote on (January 9, 2004 7:33 PM)

Jim,

Cool page. I have a polar 720. I just got a new PC but it didn't come with a IR port. I bought a little removable USB to IRDA device. Basically when I tell the Polar software to connect to the USB port I get "unable to open port" ( I know the IR device works because I hotsync with it)

I am running xp. Any suggestions?

carson wrote on (January 10, 2004 2:59 PM)

Well, the Polar 720 supports IRDA, unlike the 710 which just did directIR (hence all this nuttiness in manual configuration). My next guess would be the Polar software has the wrong port selected.

You could verify this by looking at the device manager for "IR Communication Ports" or "Infrared Devices" as above. Or, you could just do trial and error with th ecom ports.

A third possibility is your HotSync process has the port locked. A quick way to check this would be to right click on the Hotsync icon in the system tray, exit the process, and try to sync your Polar HRM.

RX wrote on (January 18, 2004 11:20 PM)

Hello!

If you add a little removable USB to IRDA device it would create a IRDA port. Point the Polar PPP software to try IRDA and it should work.

Joe Spann wrote on (February 10, 2004 6:33 PM)

Jim,

Thanks for the great instructions.
It works well on my Dell M50 running XP.
Now I can retire the Win95 laptop I've kept around solely for my Polar S710 and stop eyeing the 720i with IRda support :-)

Paul Gerrish wrote on (February 21, 2004 2:20 PM)

Noting the above - I have a S720 and the Polar interface that came with it says that the Polar IR Interface is not IdDA compatable. Is there any wya I can use the Polar IR Inrefcae for general IrDA now I ahve bought it, although from above I could haev bought a cheaper IrDA for the S720

Thanks

Paul
UK

Eric wrote on (April 22, 2004 9:19 PM)

Jim --

Thank you. I've got a Dell Inspiron 8600 and this worked. Only thing to notice is that when I first got my Laptop the IR interface was not installed. However, after intalling it (F2 when booting, then followed your reco and set to COM 2) it worked like a charm.

Tks much,
Eric

carson wrote on (May 11, 2004 7:48 AM)

Polar's most recent software is 4.01.028.

There is a separate Polar USB driver installation web page available here

Bart wrote on (May 25, 2004 7:14 AM)

I have the S710 together with the Polar IR USB Interface. I just transferred the software to my new Laptop (XP Home) and the driver doesn't work. Sometimes it says, the driver is not properly installed, sometimes it says, the driver cannot be started. I went through all of Polar's helpfiles a few times already. My PolarUSB driver version is 1.0. Is this the latest? Thank you, Bart

Dave wrote on (July 8, 2004 3:39 PM)

Hi Jim
Can u help please
My son bought a Polar S720i which we are having trouble connecting. I bought a IrDA Y-120 USB to IrDA adapter. The adapter works with my moblie phone but not with the Polar HRM Software. I use the IrDA setting, as I take it USB setting is for the Polar IR device (and it cant find the port on that setting) When we set the S720i to connect and the software to connect, the HRM starts flasing COM so it must be finding somthing but thats it before it times out. Any Ideas.
Thanks
Dave.

jim wrote on (July 8, 2004 3:56 PM)

Hi Dave, how far is the receiver from the IR port? Mine has to be literally less than an inch, otherwise it times out and gets choppy. The other thing to check is the little red dot is aligned close (e.g., you don't shake it or anything.) It sounds like it's initially connecting, though.

- Jim

Jim Carson

This is the older blog.

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