Need help on getting some comm ports set up and working...anyone??

 

So what happen with the laptop?

 

Do you have "real serial ports" on your laptop or just USB ports?
I have found usb to serial port converters to be FLAKY.
I would get a PCMCIA serial port card.

(1) You need to FIRST get the pinouts on the serial port working properly..Look at the MegaSquirt docs for the pinouts. Go to the computer store -- talk to the service technican -- show him the pinout diagram and get a serial cable that is compatible to these pinouts.
(2) Then set up the baud rate on the computer
(3) Then the word length on the computer
(4) The the parity on the computer

Most ECU serial ports wotk at 9600 baud, 8 bit word length, NO parity.

 

Got an old laptop from a friend. win95...a year 2000 Dell, and it seems to accept the program, but just will not comm any better than anything else including my son's newer Dell....on xp this old thing seem to have the same serial 9 pin D ports, and are elected at com 1 on both machines....and so forth...but I get all sorts of stupid prompts adding up to the same thing....no comm....I get the display with 8 gauges on it, but no reaction from the MS computer one bit...nothing...

may as well not be plugged in or turned on....

since I got it back from DIY AUto tune.com the stim board on loan now says it's running, but the laptops will not see it....

same as I had on my USB machine here I"m typing on...desktop/ac powered......

 

sounds like something on your MS box died. Is the port section on its own board?

 

I copied the following from the megasquirt manual at
htp://megasquirt.info:


Connect the serial cable to your computer, but not to the MegaSquirt ECU yet. Use an alligator clip or something similar to jumper pins 2 and 3 on the loose end of the cable. This provides a loopback circuit to verify the operation of your computer and the cable without involving the MegaSquirt hardware yet. Download the HyperTerminal configuration file (for MegaSquirt) by clicking on the link http://www.megamanual.com/v22manual/megasquirt.ht (then go to step D.), save it to your hard drive, then click on its icon to start HyperTerminal (to use this file with MegaSquirt-II, set the baud rate to 115200). Note that the configuration is set for com port #1, you may have to change this. OR you can set up Hyperterminal yourself:
i. On the PC, find and run HyperTerminal (Hyperterminal is usually under Start/Programs/Accessories/Communications, but if it is not there then search for a file called “hyperterm.exe”).
If you do not have HyperTerminal installed, you can get it from Hilgraeve, who wrote the original for Microsoft Windows. HyperTerminal Private Edition (HTPE) is what you want, and it's free for personal use. ii. When Hyperterm appears, click on the red telephone icon, and enter a save file name (anything you want, say, "megasquirt"). iii. When the "Connect To" dialog comes up, select under the "Connect Using" option the COM port to which the DB-9 cable is connected, i.e., COM1 or COM2. Do not worry about any of the other settings. Click OK. iv. Next, a dialog window opens with baud rate, stop bits, etc. Set the values according to the table below. Note: the last one, Flow Control, is very important – be sure to set it to None. Click OK. Baud Rate
9600 for MegaSquirt
115200 for MegaSquirt-II
Data Bits 8
Stop Bits 1
Flow Control None
HyperTerminal now is up and "connected."
Type any character - it should be echoed back to the screen, i.e. you will see it once if you do not have local echo enabled, twice if you do. Note that the above configuration file has the local echo set to "off". If the character you typed appears on the screen then the link is working. If not, then check the cable connections and try different COM ports. You must see characters echoed correctly before you move on.
Once the connection is working with the cable loopback, it is time to connect the DB-9 cable to the MegaSquirt ECU. Remove the jumper on the loose end of the cable and plug it in to the MegaSquirt DB-9 connection.
Jumper from pin 12 to pin 13 on the 40-pin processor socket [near R44], using a snipped-off component lead (i.e. the loose end from a resistor or capacitor, smaller is better to avoid damaging the socket). Be careful to count correctly to jumper the correct pins. Pin number 1 is to the left of the notch (when the notch is "up") on the chip. Do not test the loop-back yet, you have to apply power first.
Finally, plug in the stimulator to MegaSquirt to power the board up. This allows a full loop-back test, all data sent to pin 13 should be returned back on pin 12 through the MAX232 chip and all related communications circuits on the board. Again, type any character and again it should be echoed back to the screen. If characters appear on the screen then everything is fine, if not, then check solder joints on the sockets and components, verify voltages at the MAX232 chip connections and so on

Note the items in red. If you have a MS-II the baud rate is 115200. Based on your discription of getting prompts, it sounds as though you have communication, but just have a setting wrong. If you haven't downloaded the hyperterminal configuration file, I would start there. Then double check your comm settings to make sure your baud, word bits, stop bits, parity, and flow control are set properly. Also check your cable, as instructed above to make sure you have a straight through cable and not a null modem cable.

 

I am dealing with the same issue with Accel's Calmap 6.32. I got my sister's old laptop that xp installed but for some reason the Calmap DOS display screen wiowuld display with candy stripped missing vertical display lines every 1/8th so was unreadable. I am using a Radio Shack USB serial port convertor and tested to see if it would cmmunicate with onbaord and I could tell it did even though I could not read the screens.

I tried EVERY setting I could find and could not get rid of the candy stripping. I got so pist I slammed the lid hard enough to break the hard drive. Bought a new hard drive but my sister did not have the XP disk so I reinstalled ME from her orig software back up disks and now the program cannot seem to open the port all the way.

If I unplug the usb-serial adaptor I get a error message but when it is plugged in the program does not give the beeps indicating it is waiting for a response from the onboard computer so I think it detects the port but does not open it. I noticed in the usb-serial adaptor properties there is no IRQ setting so I think that is the problem.

Am going to get Windows 2000 installed by a gear head IT guy at work and see if that will allow communication. What operating system are you running?

 

I read all that what MSQ had there on the site, and my son and I can't figger it out we think we have some of the setting correct, and it looks more or less ok, but what appears for choices and things to set/adjust on our computers, any of them...xp, 95, whatever...none of them seem to function....

also, how in hell do I know that the 9 pin serial D connector is com1 or whatever?? just exactly where to go to get that information??

we have a MSII so the brawd rate is at 115200, and the rest are set what we think makes sense...8 bits, and a NONE at the bottom for flo controll, which does not appear as an option in the screens of one of the computer, I forget which one now.....

it's a total freaking snowball job to me, I never will make it in geek land....

 

Not all USB/serial adaptors are the same.

I do not have the accel computer, but the Keyspan Miniport Replicator (pn upr-112) adaptor seems to be the only one that works well with my MEFI 4 b software.

Doug

 

I am messing with older laptops to do this with on account of I returned a damn USB/serial port adaptor on account of just that problem....well.....so it seems the problem remains on two differant machines....

BOTH with direct built in D 9 pin serial ports.....

 

Remember I said it worked with XP and not with ME, XP assigned it a IRQ and a port # will ME does not so I think the adaptor is fine but the operating system (ME) is not allowing full operation of either the adaptor or the software (Calmap)

Gene

If you into the device manager and check the port properties is should tell you what port # is assinged to it

I am not expert but have learned a few things trying to get the newer laptop to work properly

 

in XP right click on My Computer, on the next menu on the left side click on Device Manager. In the next menu on the right is a line for Ports (com & LPT), left click on that. You should then see a list of ports, right click on Com 1 and it will have tabs that give you all the info on Com1

 

I am no computer expert either, by any means, way shape or form.

I kept switch COM ports until it worked. I am using a newer Lenovo machine with XP.

The MEFI software is windows based and fairly easy to use, but at $650, not cheap, and of course, is for the Delphi ECM.

Doug