Around 2008–2012, the market flooded with counterfeit Prolific PL-2303 chips—especially the PL-2303HX (rev A). These fake chips did not fully comply with Prolific’s specifications. To protect their revenue, Prolific released driver updates (versions 3.3.11 and above) that deliberately disabled functionality for counterfeit chips. When you plug in a clone adapter, Windows would show:
Last updated: 2026-05-12