If you try to synchronize your Newton with the Newton Connection Kit and the connection "drops" or times out, try the following steps:
1) Be sure to avoid communication port conflicts. On Windows-compatible PCs, two communications ports generally share one interrupt line. COM1 and COM3 generally share IRQ4, while COM2 and COM4 share IRQ3.
Since you can't have more than one active device at a time on the same interrupt line, your connection will "drop" if a serial device (such as a mouse) uses the same interrupt line as the Connection Kit.
Note: The Windows Connection Kit will try to disable any communications ports on which it finds active devices.
Communication port conflicts can also occur if you have a fax/modem card. Fax software is generally loaded at startup and activates its communication port. If the fax/modem card uses the same interrupt as the serial port to which your Newton is connected, you won't be able to use the Connection Kit. In this case, be sure that you disable the fax software and restart your computer. To turn off your fax software, check the AUTOEXEC.BAT file or the WIN.INI LOAD= statement, remove any code that calls your fax software and restart your computer.
2) Try to synchronize again, especially if you've never synchronized your Newton before. Due to the Windows Connection Kit's speed, your connection can "drop" while your computer is processing data. This is especially true with computers which use a 80386SX microprocessor.
Trying to synchronize again will usually get around this problem. When you synchronize your Newton and your computer for the first time, synchronization files are created. Subsequently, synchronizing will go faster because there's less data to process and the chance of a timeout lessens.