Quote Originally Posted by WILLIAM BRISTOW View Post
If the RS-232 is built-in on the PC motherboard, or a separate PC-I card, then there may be power management on that as well so go back into device manager under system settings and look for the serial LPT controller and disable power management on that if it is available as an option.
William.
it is built into the motherboard. this is the computer i am using: http://www.logicsupply.com/ml600g-30/

i really doubt it is a power problem (either to the mount or the serial port). if the power was lost in the serial port (or to the mount) the driver software would set off many alarm bells. Astro Physics APCC hub software and AP ASCOM driver will complain a lot if anything like that happened. ALL devices at the scope have independent DC power feeds.

it's a software "thing" somewhere(?) but i can't pin down the scenario to reliably produce it.

only reason i brought it up again in this thread is 'cuz Bob asked "is this still an issue?". it just happened the night before he asked that question, otherwise i was going to let "sleeping dogs lie" until i could find a consistent scenario to reproduce it.

i do appreciate the suggestions!!