As also posted in off topic:

Today me and a friend attempted to reflash the powertrain control module (pcm) on his 2001 Z06 with newley purchased LS1 Edit software. The old computer we were using consists of an AMD K62 500, 40gig hd, 128mb sdram etc etc...The software wouldn't read the pcm because of a cabling error. I don't think this old computer or perhaps the motherboard produces the proper voltages to work with an rs-232 9 pin cable. After exhausting all resources we went and borrowed a buddies brand new Dell (P4 2.5ghz) and everything worked awesome. We were able to d/l the stock pcm configuration, modify it, and re-flash it all within 20 minutes. So my question is: How can we make the old computer work with the rs-232 cable at proper voltages if that is indeed the problem?

:seeya

 

:hat

 

You probably have an incorrect COM port driver or an incorrect COM port setting in the OS. LS1Edit works perfectly on my IBM Thinkpad PII 233Mhz with 96 MB.

 

Serial ports have been around for many many years and are very standardized and have been for probably the last 10 years. I don't think your issues have anything to do with voltages.

You probably have a driver issue or irq conflict etc. What operating system are you running? Depending on your OS(operating system) you need to verify your serial port settings and functionality.

Doing that depends on your operating system....

Win9X - go to control panel, choose 'System'. Go to the 'Device Manager'
tab, go to 'Ports' item and click on the plus.

Win2K/XP - Go to Desktop 'My Computer' and right click and choose
'Properties'. Select the 'hardware' tab. Click on the 'Device Manager'
button, go to 'Ports' item and click on the plus.

WinNT - consult your devices manual....sorry


Then for any of the above OSes choose your Communications port(Com1 or Com2) and go to the settings tab and then set:

Bits per Second to 19200
Data Bits to 8
Parity to EVEN
Stop Bits to 1
and Flow Control to NONE


Try that and see if that helps, these settings should be correct.

If you notice a Red X, or a ? to the left of the Communications Port that indicates your serial port isn't working (Red X) or it has a conflict with another device (?).
If you see the Red X check the settings and correct if wrong and then close all windows and restart your computer and go into the BIOS and make sure the serial ports are enabled there.

If you get the ? that means you have a conflict with another device and need to resolve the conflict. In this case you can go to the resources tab and try changing the IO address and Interupt settings to resolve the conflict.

Normally COM1 will be 03F8-03FF and IRQ 4 and COM2 will be 02F8-02FF and IRQ 3. These are the defaults, anything else and the software may have a hard time working with it so try these settings.

Hope some part of this helps. If not repost what the device manager reports about you ports. Good luck!

 

I use my old Dell Pentium II 233mhz 128 meg running Windows NT and have had no problems. Haven't tried newer Compaq P4 2.3 Ghz 512 meg W2K because the old does just fine.

Recheck all com port settings