frying com ports

Anyone have an epidemic of com ports going bad? I’ve had four in the last month. We all use Palm Vx’s and all have identical Intel NetStations with Win 98SE and Outlook 2000 (identical images). We all have surge protectors, and no one seems to be syncing more that anyone else. No funky software or other hardware peripherals. It’s not the Palm or the cradle, it’s the com (serial) port. I’m sure of it. I bought some usb adapters and they worked fine with them. All this, of course, after whipping out the palms (hard reset), reimagine the Win 98 machines, swapping cradles, making voodoo dolls and trying to get the moon’s rays to hit my monitors at night. I’d appreciate any experienced advice.

Duke