alright well i messed up my buddy's pcm while trying to tune (i think my cable is bad). right after it erased the stock tune, i got an error message. fans came on with ignition and after that my computer wouldnt recognize the pcm. so i went to my car to put the stock tune in my pcm so i could put my pcm in his car and mine did the same exact thing. he took both pcm's to the dealership, they gave him the runaround (obviously didnt want to do it), but then finally checked one of them and they said that they couldnt reflash it cause their equipment woudnt recognize the pcm either. you think we just need new pcm's or were they possibly just bs'ing him? i am also afraid when i get another pcm in my car to use my cable again and try programming

 

You will probably need to send it to one of the places that repair PCMs or get a new one. This is one place that fixes them. http://madz28.com
I wouldn't try reflashing one untill you fix your problem.
When you get your pcm fixed try reading it before you do anything else. If you can't read it you will most likely ruin the pcm if you try to program it.

 

Andrew at AKMcables.com will do it also. Charges like $30 + ~$20 for an extra set of chips. What he does is remove the stock chip and install a socket then flash some new chips and install the new chips into the sockets. Helps a great deal. Will alleviate the need to keep sending your pcm to someone. Simply open it up, pluck out the bad chips, insert the new ones, close er up, reinstall in car and go.

 

good to know. thanx guys

 

Give us the specs on your computer and software... basically a complete rundown on what steps you take to flash a PCM.

I used to have the same problem where it would lose connection just as the chips were erased. Got the newest version of TC with an IBM lappy and havent lost one yet... knock on wood.

 

well, im using tunercat version 2.08. i have a 800mhz p3 laptop. all i use if for is tuning. flashed probably 40-50 times never with a problem. the cable recently would stop working intermittently while logging if moved, but whenever i went to flash, i would make sure it was reading the pcm with freescan, then without moving anything i would then put a new tune in. i did the same thing last week and as soon as it erased the old tune, i got a error right after (identical on both cars/pcm's i fried). I have a new cable on the way from www.aldlcable.com cause i'm afraid to use my old cable again. i was gonna try to find a pinout diagram for the cable so i could do a continuity test on it to see if all the pins are making good connection so i could try flashing a new computer from the auto parts store but i havent gotten the pinout yet. i may wait till i get the new cable, but my buddy needs to drive his car and already bought the new pcm.