I sent this in a PM to nathan, but I figured that I could a lot of help from the rest of you as well:

when you hook up just the UTEC, no ecu, to the PC, should you be able to access and navigate through the UTEC features? or do you need the ecu connected in order to do so?

I ask cause I got my UTEC yesterday and after reading the manual, of course, I hooked up just my UTEC to my laptop. I had it powered up with the 9v adapter (red light was on) and hyperterminal was setup as specified in the manual, but I wasn't getting anything when I would connect.

Let me know, thanks!

 

No, you don't need the stock ECU hooked up at all if your configuring it.. You'll see the same information regardless when its running off the 9V battery.

as long as your cable is hooked up correctly, and you get the light, you should be able to see something on the hyperterminal.. try hitting control-X or escape a few times to see if the screen refreshes..

Also..

Recommended settings are 19200 E,8,1 also, if your using hardware flow control, it may have some trouble depending on your computer, so set it to NONE for flow control for the time being.

 

another possibility is your COM port is conflicting with another device (IRDA, InfraRed) or a Modem.. Verify that if your using COM1, that you don't have a conflict with another com port (COM3 for example) on interrupt 4

If your using a USB-COM adapter... you'll probably have to disable the hardware flow control in Hyperterminal..

That should cover a majority of the problems I've seen.

 

I don't have a usb-com adapter, so that isn't the issue. I was just trying to check it out real quick last night. There easily could have been a loose cable, not really sure. After work I'll try it again and make sure everything is connected correctly. I know I have the hyperterminal settings correct. I just had a blank white screen and it had the connection timer going on the bottom. I'll give it a shot again tonight and let you know how it goes. thanks for the help malibujack!!

 

I did notice when I first got my UTEC that the serial port was really difficult to seat the connector, so its entirely likely it was a bad connection.

 

well I tried again and screwed the cable down and still nothing. I will give turboxs a call, but that is going to have to wait til monday. Any more suggestions? Its so frustrating since it is so easy grrrrrr

 

I have the same problem with mine, even hooked up with the stock ecu in the car. The best I can tell, its like any other computer system. Everything has to be hooked up in the proper order, otherwise, nothing. After a few tries, reconnecting cables, checking configuration, etc, it worked. Keep trying!

 

Wow.. Thats really odd.. Sometimes my COM port gives me trouble, but mine always connects, sometimes it gets framing errors in the data (so it looks like gibberish) but I can tell thats my computer doing it (it only does it on my older laptop)

Keep us in the loop on this one, I'm curious to know what the issue is. My only weird experience with the serial port was that it was difficult to get "plugged in" initially and wouldn't seat in the connector all the way, resulting in no data connection, once I got it seated, it worked for me..

 

i have to put the mouse in the box and click it then hit enter and the black screen pops up. Took me awhile to figure that one out. RRR

 

thanks for the help guys. I didn't have a chance to check it out yesterday at all. I will get to it today after work and check the connection again and also try clicking the screen and then hitting enter. I'll keep you guys posted.

 

Like one of the others mentioned you have to hit a key or enter or whatever for the menue to pop up. If you just plug in and "connect you will get nothing but a blank screen.

I use secureCRT instead of hyperterminal, and after connecting I have to hit enter one time to get the session flowing.

 

ok, I'm still having trouble getting this to work. The cable is screwed in both the laptop and the UTEC. I connect (settings are an exact match to the manual) and then I will click on the window (sometimes several times) and hit enter and still NOTHING. The red power light is on.

any other ideas?

my laptop is really old (win98), so I'm going to try and get the newest version of hyperterminal and maybe even securecrt. I'm goign to try everything.

I will put in a call to turboxs tomorrow during lunch

 

BINGO. I've had this feeling that the problem was my laptop and not the UTEC or the cable. So this morning I made a mess out of my computer desk and hooked up the UTEC to my desktop and PRESTO! it worked perfect. Now that I know what the problem is (stupid laptop), I will be able to fix it in no time. Thanks for the help