Or it's a older network card and you may want to assign it a new IRQ using it's jumpers (after removing it from the "system" in the system settings control panel).

If you can remove some other cards and see if it clears up, that will tell you what's wrong, then you can figure out what to do from there.

Check it's properties in the system settings and see what IRQ's and I/O Space, write them down and see what's conflicting.

You could go into Safe Mode and delete all the Port Entries in System Configuration, and let the system try again. (this most likely will NOT do anything, but try it if you are loosing sleep over all this)

If you have a internal modem, you may want to disable the modem's COM port at the BIOS level and let the modem itself be the 'COM Port', may be a fix for that problem on some configurations.

It is sometimes preferable to disable the com port in the BIOS whenever you are using an internal modem and want to use a Com1 or Com2 as it's port.

Generally speaking, in the BIOS COMA actually refers to serial port 1, and COMB refers to serial port 2. By default, COMA is usually set to be COMM PORT 2, IRQ 3.

If you are using an internal modem and not using the serial ports, then you should disable COMA and COMB to avoid IRQ conflicts.

: i have no more the port com2 after a network card installation, is that normal ? i have only port 1 and 3 both with irq 4. how can i get the port com2 back ?