The physical device driver does not claim the interrupt level the port is on until the port is open. If the interrupt level is not available, the OPEN request packet fails. The interrupt level is claimed exclusively on the ISA bus machines. The interrupt level is claimed shareable on the Micro Channel architecture machines.

On PS/2 machines, a First Level Open causes the physical device driver to attempt to obtain a Logical ID. If this fails (which indicates another physical device driver might be using the device), a general failure is returned. If the Logical ID is obtained, but the open fails for some other reason, the Logical ID is freed. Other physical device drivers that coexist with the OS/2 physical ASYNC device driver perform similar processing.

If a timer tick handler is not available during First Level Open processing, the Open request can fail. If the physical device driver receives an OPEN request packet and the COM device is not already open (from a previous open without a close), this is called a First Level Open, and the physical device driver does special processing. See States of the ASYNC Device Driver. If a subsequent Open request is issued before a previous First Level Open request has completed, the device driver might process the OPEN request packets in an order different from the one in which they were issued. This could cause the First Level Open to take effect at a time different from what the application expected.

An Open request should never be issued until a previous Last Level Close request has completed. Otherwise, the function performed by a Last Level Close and a First Level Open might not occur. If the port is not already open (First Level Open), the physical device driver attempts to clear out any data in the receive hardware. On the IBM PS/2 system, if the port is not already open (First Level Open), the physical device driver relies on the Reset/Initialize Advanced BIOS function to reset and clear the UART receive hardware.