I get a message while booting of:

ide2: I/O resource 0x3EE-0x3EE not free. ide2: ports already in use, skipping probe

Googling for this, I find it is relatively common, and on different laptops.

I thought it might be my internal SD reader causing the problems, but these other notebooks do not have such devices. Then I found:

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~pb22/I8600/

and:

"

IrDA - works except on COM3 / ttyS2

It appears that *ttyS2* (the FC2 default) does not work as the IrDA - on boot it reports `*ttyS2 at I/O 0x3e8 (irq = 0) is a 16550A*' and `*ide2: I/O resource 0x3EE-0x3EE not free.*', `*ide2: ports already in use, skipping probe*'. As such, during *POST* press *F2* and *Alt-P* 3 times and set the IrDA to *COM2* or *COM4* (which select *IRQ 3* with *I/O 0x2f8* or *0x2e8* on *ttyS1* or *ttyS3* - ra3 is the latter). Edit */etc/pcmcia/config.opts* to `*exclude irq 3*' (so that the IRQ is free) and */etc/sysconfig/irda* to set `*DEVICE=/dev/ttyS3*' (or *1*), and run `*chkconfig irda on*' so that it starts on reboot (or `*/etc/rc.d/init.d/irda start*' or `*irattach /dev/ttyS3 -s*'). It should load *ircomm_sir*, *sir_dev*, *irnet*, *ppp_generic*, *slhc*, *ircomm_tty*, *ircomm*, *irda*, *irtty_sir* and *crc_ccitt*, and */var/log/messages* should have"

Now I have already put ttyS2 on irq3 (from dmseg):

ttyS2 at I/O 0x3e8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A

How do I test the IRDA?