A little picaxe trouble..

[marthais]

I recently purchased a picaxe 08m,14m, and 18x from world education services. after receiving them, i built the programmer circuit (9 pin) described in nuts and volts, servo, and the help files. i plugged it into my computer, using the same(and, i believe, only) 9 pin rs323 port i use to program my basic stamps.
after using the test port tool, i determined that the serial port is port 5. for some unknown (to me) reason, the test function always works, but i cannot download any programs. I have gone over everything, and found nothing wrong whatsoever: powers is fine, serial port is connected...any ideas/suggestion would be appreciated.
if there is nothing i can do, i am leaning to the idea that WES's shipping method ( a plastic tube that did not look static safe, covered in packing tape) had something to do with it.

thanks!

[bwts]

So you know for sure a signal is physically comming out of the serial port?

[marthais]

yes

[bwts]

I have never used PICAXE's but the normal PICs are pretty sensitive.

Still the fact that you cant program any of them is a bit strange. There isnt some security flag or something in the code or on the board?

[SoftwareDeveloper]

Did you change your serial port to be 2400 baud?

It defaults to 9600 in windows.

I had this problem with the 05M can't say about others.

[awander]

Did Picaxe run a special on that group of 3 chips?

I am trying to help a young acquaintance with the set he bought-he is having exactly the same trouble-he tried the 08M and the 18X, and yesterday I tried both of those with him, then we also tried the 14M. i brought the 18X home, and tried 2 other PC's-always the same-the test of the serial port works(voltage on the Serin pin goes from -0.5V to +5V when the button is pressed), but we can't program them using the circuit in the manual.

Andy