Lost COM3 on win7 --> CP210x

Hello,

I am very new to 3D printing. I bought a reprap Prusa to learn…

The printer has worked (not really fine, but that was an hardware problem with the nozzle) that appears to be solved now I changed it.

But with all my tests, I had some times problem "losing" the printer on my win7 computer. I am using RepetierHost, and while clicking "connect" it said COM3 was not available. With changing the USB port, it was working again, so I didn't bothered. I should have…

I have now tried every USB port available. There is no way I can connect to the printer now. Indeed, it seems even windows can't see the printer. I have tried in the control panel to add a device manually, but nothing appears.
The driver for the virtual serial port seems to be : Silicon Laboratories CP210x VCP Drivers for Windows 7.
I have tried the usual uninstall, reinstall without success.
I have looked in the forum, someone has a similar problem, with a driver for the VCP from FTDI. It recomended to to the version 2.10 instead of the 2.12. I have tried both without success.
It is frustrating!

Do you have any ideas on what I could do?

Edit: I guess there is probably something I could clean up in windows as, as it has worked, the driver is not that bad, but some situations are likely to block the USB acces to the VCP. So if I unlock that, it should work again. By the way, if this solution works, as it is not that frequent, I may do this procedure sometimes to keep it going. But, I have no ideas where to look for that.

Thanks for your kind help.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/05/2015 08:52PM by fdf.

To continue to print I have found a turnaround with using a SDcard which is actually very easy to use (just copying the gcode file to the SD…)

But my problem remains.

I have tried looking in the registery. I can find some COM3 reference and some CP210x.
The CP210 refer to the path to the driver file, so I kept it.
I have tried deleting the COM3 reference. but when plugging the USB, it reappears without changing anything. So I guess it is to another level.

hi,
I went through a similar issue with a new ramps+mega but i used Pololu instead and it worked.

Thanks for your proposal Jinx

I think I will try to find a software solution first as obviously it has worked for some time.

If still can't find, I'll consider your proposal.

Best regards