Any port in a Storm (ECU connections)

[Mr Cerbera]

Dear All,

The never-ending story continues….

1) Cables

2) Connections

I am now desperate….

This is a long one so get your best cup/glass of beverage and sit yourself down.

So I now have a 64-bit laptop using MS Win 7 and have managed to install a VM from ORACLE, set up a 32-bit WinXP Guest within it and was able to install the TVR ECU Diagnostics software and get it running.

My final (?!?) Becher’s Brook moment has been trying to get the diagnostics software to look at the ECU. I originally set the Host Win7 COM1 Port up in the Device Manager to….


Managed to set the Guest environment’s USB Device values as well….


There are four options for the Serial Port settings…. , the default being ‘Disconnected’. When I run the Diagnostics with this setting there is no ‘Serial Port’ warning, obviously, as there is no connection to the ECU.

When I set this value to ‘Host Device’ I have also set the ’Port/File Path’ to ’COM1’.
When I run the Diagnostics with these settings, I get nothing, no ‘Serial Port’ warning, no information on the Diagnostics window, nada.

Same situation exists if I select the ‘Reconnect to the ECU’ or if I press F5 twice, absolutely nothing.

If I disconnect the USB cable from the laptop it gives me the ‘Serial Port’ warning so there is communication there but just nothing with the ECU.

So I’m stuck.

Does anyone out there in the wilderness have any suggestions ??

( My MOT is at 13:45 today which I’m obviously gonna miss but it means that the clock is ticking)

[Tanguero]

At the risk of stating the obvious, you do have the ignition on and the immobiliser off on the car?


Thinking back I have also had a similar issue with one USB/Serial converter. I never did get that working but changed it for one with a different chipset. Its probably worth double checking that there are no other devices, virtual or otherwise that are using the same IRQ and port as the one you are using. Historically COM1 and COM3 would share an IRQ as would COM2 and COM4

Edited by Tanguero on Wednesday 8th May 13:05

[Snake278]

So you finaly suceed in getting your adaptater to the ecu ?
Here is some tips so you can find what's wrong ( My computer is in French I'll have to do some litteral trad):
1The most common): Is your adaptater directly connected to the Ecu or is there a cable between ? (If you have one, are you sure it work, do you try it on another ECU ?)
2: On the Control Panel, go on your Device Manager, right click on your Com port, set to COM2, then property look if everything is right (The connection is 4096 on both side)
3: Start the New diag software, turn the immobilizer off and the ignition on press F5, F10, change COM port to COM2 on both side, press F5 again. On mine it work after I do F5, F10, F5 another time.
4: If it don't work go back to your control panel, set COM1, go to your Diag software press F5, F10, set COM1 on both side and press F5 again.

P.S: I haven't read the whole Cable and Connection thread so I may have miss something.

[Mr Cerbera]

Hi Both,

Many thanks for your help and suggestions.

Pete: Very good idea to check but “Yes”, I’ve always done the tests with the engine running. In fact, I didn’t realise that you could perform the test with the ignition open and without the engine running so that’s useful for the future. Thanks !

Snake: Brilliant post. Thanks very much for the new direction and structure.
Here goes:-

1: The Serial converter is plugged directly into the ECU Cable plug but there is a USB extender between it and the laptop. I have replaced this with another cable and the problem persists L

2. I presumed when you said “On the Control Panel, go on your Device Manager” that you intended the Host machine and not the Guest machine.
When I tried to change the COM port on the Host, I had the following options….


but, when I tried to select COM2, I received the following warning….


Thanks again, for your ideas. It looks as if there is a clash for the COM ports now. Just haven’t been able to find out what part of the machine is using which port.

Do you, or anyone else, have any further suggestions ?

Paul

Edited by Mr Cerbera on Saturday 11th May 11:44

[Snake278]

Ok so you have almost the same configuration as I have.
Your USB to serial extender is an FTDI Chip model ?
I hear there is some problem with the other version (cheapest version).
Can you connect directly the usb to serial converter on the ECU ?
I was getting the same kind of trouble on mine with an Emerald RS232 cable plus USB to Rs232 converter, I can get mine connected only if I connect the usb converter directly to the ECU (which give me about 10cm between the ecu and the laptot, XD)

Another fix! I put my second MBE ECU on eBay lol.

[Snake278]

By "host machine" you mean a virtual OS ? (i.e you run XP on a computer with another os already started )
Because the software diag work with every OS I've tried, XP, Vista, Seven (and I think Windows 8 too).
All you need is an USB to serial converter with an FTDI Chip, (that way you can have a correct driver for your OS on the FTDI Website)
I'm not home right now I'll try to take pictures on the way I get it work.

Edited by Snake278 on Saturday 11th May 15:41

[crypto]

The FTDI and Prolific are different chips. I know that Prolific had chip-revisions that don't run on Win8 and had problems on Vista/Win7. But this seems not the case here as the drivers are correctly installed in the Host and Guest System.

@Mr. Cerbera: can you confirm that the same cables (extender & converter) were working on a WinXp Host machine ?
The settings you made (Host Device, etc.) look correct to me.

[Mr Cerbera]

crypto said:

The FTDI and Prolific are different chips. I know that Prolific had chip-revisions that don't run on Win8 and had problems on Vista/Win7. But this seems not the case here as the drivers are correctly installed in the Host and Guest System.

@Mr. Cerbera: can you confirm that the same cables (extender & converter) were working on a WinXp Host machine ?
The settings you made (Host Device, etc.) look correct to me.

Dear All,

Apologies for my bad explanations. To summarise:
I have an ASUS Laptop. The installed 64-bit OS is Win 7. This is my 'Host' OS.
I downloaded the VM ware, installed a VM and loaded a 32-bit Win XP OS on it. This is my 'Guest'.
I copied both the ECU Diags to the XP Guest and installed them there.

At one time, in the past, I actually had the ECU Diags talking to the ECU AND collected data
BUT
My Win XP package has a 30-day lifespan and so de-installed.

I repeated the whole process again to analyse a new situation and have the current problem with the set up.
Because the hardware has worked successfuly in the past, I strongly doubt that is the problem. The USB-Serial Converter was kindly built for me by aide. He tested it successfully and, like I say, it has worked previously.
Because of the 'strange' warnings I am getting from the COM settings, I strongly suspect that this IS the problem.

I have trawled the Web for 'identifying COM port assignations' and have not found anything helpful. Most comments refer to the ancient history of DOS assignations and state that it is not possible to trace what logical/physical peripherals are assigned to serial ports.

I can't believe that can be true. There must be some way to examine some kind of register setting, Shirley ?

Thanks, in advance, for any time you can spare.

PJ

Edited by Mr Cerbera on Monday 13th May 08:35

[ukkid35]

For the sake of £50, why not buy one of these, works great for me.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/251265682205

We can try it with your car at Zolder if you're going to be there.

[Mr Cerbera]

ukkid35 said:

For the sake of £50, why not buy one of these, works great for me.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/251265682205

We can try it with your car at Zolder if you're going to be there.

Thanks Paul for pointing that out,

there are several points about this offer:

1) Having been unemployed for a looooong time "For the sake of £50" is like saying "for the sake of your daughter"

2) If I wasn't unemployed then £50 would go on refurbing a wheel

3) and finally, perhaps because I'm just an old bd, I would like to solve this problem with my brain rather than just throwing money at it.
( However I have contacted the ebay seller to ask what OS the Noebook comes with )

Zolder sounds brill' (have we talked about it already ??)
BUT
500 kms with a MIL(F) light on does not but still very much appreciate the offer

[Snake278]

This error is normal when you change port, its just saying that the Diag software is already using a COM ports you want to change. Just click Yes and continue to play with Port and F5/F10 on the Software Diag.

If it does not work I think your Host/Guest system is blocking the way you can work with COM ports.

I will take time to do some pictures on my system to try to help.

[crypto]

As an alternative to running Xp in a VM, you might consider creating a Bootable CD or USB-Stick with WinXp ?
So you don't have to mess around with Win7/8 and VM's and would make it plug into almost any PC in the future.
Try searching for :
http://nu2.nu/pebuilder/#download
http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/
Let me know if you would try this path and need help ...

[Mr Cerbera]

Thanks Peter,

Will start backing up my laptop in preparation.