So, I am just wondering, is there some sort of internal battery inside of the ECU? On my '06, I have a stock PCM that I run for inspection, and I was out in the garage tonight to do some speed density tuning on it.

I plug in the Tactrix 1.3, test-write my new tune, and it fails. This is the error:

I tried this a few times, and it kept failing the same way. I then tried reading the rom, and I got the same failure.

Then, I wanted to make sure my PCM wasn't fried, so I tried starting the car, and it fired right up like normal. Then, a few seconds later, I tested reading the tune to EcuFlash, and it worked perfectly. Then I tried test-writing my tune and it failed again.

It used to work fine, last year I flashed it a few times, so something happened between now and then. Is there some sort of internal battery in the PCM that has to charge before it will work right? Any thing else I should be looking at?

Thanks guys!

--mark

 

I didn't see the sticky at the top of the page. It may be that my battery is not charged enough, even though it's enough to start the car. I will put it on the charger tonight, and try again.

 

Sounds like the car battery had low volts... you won't be able to read/write below a low volt threshold. Do you have a trickle charger? I bet if you hooked one up to the battery it would work.

 

I have the same problem when its cold out.Try warming your car up before you flash.

 

theres been a few times now, where I went out to flash the car before I started/warmed it up, in the mornings, and didnt wanna flash...
I believe it has something to do w/ voltage as well, altho my battery is reasonably new (~6 months)...
It has NO probs reading/writing once the car has been started!

 

An intermittent/broken connection of the wire that goes to the white connector will also give the same indication the OP had. Mine had fatigued from use. Looked OK but when you pull the wire you can see the insulation stretch. Repaired that wire twice now since I have had mine.
Tactrix 1.3

 

If your battery voltage is lower than 12V on a cold car, ecuflash refuses to start write, happened to me numerous times in winter due to dying mini-battery and under 0°C temperatures

Check battery voltage with evoscan first.
If it's too low, drives or let the engine run a few minutes then stop and check voltage again.

It's a safety feature I think, if voltage is already too low ebfore the flash, the time the flash goes on it can go even lower and risk messing up your ECU.

 

I have to use a trickle charger every single time and am very use to this problem. i have a yellowtop that never drops below 12v when i try reading from ecu. i metered it and for some reason if i loose about half a volt the ecu ****s a brick and locks me out with the same code... from the research i did way back when i first experienced it i was just told evo ecu's are just picky as hell. im going to install a compositor when i get home to fix the problem. or at least in theory it should work..

 

i also have used up a few battery's new or not... i normally can not make it threw more than one or two flashes b4 i get stopped mid threw and then im just screwed cuz my battery is to low and i have a evo with half a brain thats just a big paper weight... learned to have a jumper pack quick if your tuning on the fly haha