Do today desktops include RS-232 connectors?
 

Hi: I've seen everything is USB nowadays on desktops. But may be some of them have RS-232. Do they?

It's unlikely in general to find a high street system with one onboard, but the motherboards are out there certainly, so you can build one yourself if you wish. Using a USB to Serial is generally a fairly simple thing to do though.

There seems to be about 50/50 split between desktops that include serial and LPT ports. Most desktop chipsets have the interface so the question is whether there routed out to the back connector. The split seems to high end machines have it low end don't.

If you look at self build it's even better most full size ATX and mini ATX motherboards have an RS232 connector. So building yourself may be the way to go if this is a killer feature for you. I would recomend building your own desktop in my experiance the cost is about the same but you have more control and you can put better quality components in (lots of off the shelf systems skimp on RAM quality and even worse but cheap PSUs in).

Anyway to get a system with RS232 off the shelf may cost a little more and you will need to be careful and make sure your new machine has these interfaces.

The other option is to get a RS-232 serail PCI(e) card, there on ebuyer for £25 (GBP) fo a 2 port caard (on PCIe x1) but proces may vary by region.

In fact, many boards have RS232 capability, by offering a header on the board, but you have to buy the slot panel with the connector extra, it is mostly not in the package.
if your board does not have the header you can alternatively an USB-RS232 adapter or one of the many available PCI(e) cards with RS232 and LPT.

To find out if your mainboard has such a header consult the manual, if you have one you need one of these: http://www.logicsupply.com/products/db9_idc10

Very nice posts, thank you guys.