New laptop without Serial port?
 

My new laptop has no serial/DB9 ports and is running Windows Vista. I bought a USB to DB9 converter but still cannot get the ECU and laptop to link.

Is it Vista?

I downloaded a driver for the USB to DB9 cable but still no link?

Can anyone help?

Does Windows recognize the USB to serial converter?

What COM port does it assume? The Microtech software (for some unknown and stupid reason) only works on COM1 or COM2.

i am running vista, and i am having good luck with the usb to serial adapter from radio shack, i just installed the driver, than you have to assign the usb port as com 1 or com 2, and you should be good to go. if i had to guess, you havent assigned the usb port as a com port.
Rob

http://www.emtcompany.com/products/a...FQKaFQodg2S3xQ

^ is the convertor I bought but did not come with a driver. Do you have a link to the driver software you used? I think you hit the nail on the head, I definetly havent assigned the USB port as a COMM port.

http://www.bb-elec.com/product.asp?s...rt_dept_id=145

^ I downloaded the driver from this page but I could not get it to work. Am I missing a step? How do I assign the USB port as comm port?

Thanks

I've downloaded the driver and its working. I've also set it to com port one. I still cant connect to the ECU for some reason. I have the car running and I have verified that its on com1. When I hit the F1 key it thinks for about 30 seconds then gives me the cannot connect window.

hmm, you are using one of the microtech dongles right?

if not you need one of them to connect...

Yes, the exact dongle my friend uses with his laptop that has a serial port when he plugs into my car. When I loaded the driver it built the bridge onto com 17 so I switched it to com 1. Besides that I cant think of anything else. I even pulled up my carpey to make sure the dongle was connected to the ECU. I'm stumpted.

I'm starting to think its my cheapy $10 adapter. I'm going to buy the adapter from Radio Shack because I'm pretty sure I have everything configured properly.

http://www.rx7club.com/showthread.ph...=no+connection

This ^ thread makes it seem like its my cheapy adapter.

Have you disabled the COM1 built into the laptop? Even if you don't have a physical port, you may already have COM1 as either a modem or a UART to be used when docked. Make sure the USB adapter is not conflicting.

Aaron,

When I initially loaded the driver it was configured as com 17. I went into the advanced options and changed it to com 1. Com 2 was also available but com 3 and up until about com 15 were all listed as being used or busy. I did not disable anything I will give that a shot today. When I plug the converter into the USB port the software recognizes it and uses the proper driver and com 1. If I plug into one of the other usb ports it does a quick load and picks com 17 again. So I know that when I plug into the proper USB I get the converter driver and com 1. When I look into the details of the driver I dont get any warnings or notices of a failure just that it is working. Is there a way to tell if its conflicting?

Turned out to be the cheapy cable bought the $40 one from BestBuy and it worked.

Thanks for the help everyone!