I just got my AKM cable today.. I have a Compaq 1.4 Athlon laptop with XP, I got the cable for the 95 OBDII connector. I then dowloaded Freescan and Datamaster with the same laptop.

Neither one of these pieces of software appears to be seeing any data from the pcm.

I got a 25 pin adapter from Radio Shack to connect the female 9 pin end of the ALDL cable to the 25 pin female port on the laptop (the laptop does not have a male DB9 port on it). Wrong serial port? Should I have gotten an adapter for the female 15 pin port? A USB instead of either serial? I have no idea at this point..

I did do some digging around in the Datamaster help. It says to go into the BIOS and enable a port if in the device mgr there are no COM ports listed. I do not have any COM ports in there, just the lpt. So I went into the BIOS and what do you know? There is no means of enabling a COM port in there! .

What a mess....

 

For a lot of the programs I'm pretty sure you're gonna need a COM port... I don't think any of the programs use USB. Sorry this isn't much help but it looks like you may need a different laptop...

 

You should read the LT1edit list archive. Lots of people have problems with the newer laptops with no serial (comm) port and also with XP. There may be some work arounds.

 

Thanks guys.. I should be able to dig up an old laptop pretty easily. I kind of had a feeling it might turn out this way..

 

I think that's the right move on your part. A PII running at 233 or better, a copy of win98se, turn off all power saver stuff, no screen saver, have only comm1 in bios. Should never have a problem.

 

Cool, thanks for the tip on the minimum config to look for

Did a quick search on Ebay and Half.com and came up with a pretty decent sized list of ones that'd fit the bill nicely - and they're only a couple hundred bucks... In the mean time, I've got an NT machine sitting here with nothing to do. I'm going to see if that'll work. If not, I may just lose it and drag this machine down there! lol

Thanks again..

 

This may be the answer to the problem folks like myself and others with newer laptops which lack a serial port are having. I'm going to order one and give it a shot before buying another laptop.

I sent an email to Andrew Mattei about it and it looks like that model is the exact one he's using with a Toshiba laptop. Check this out.

USB -> ALDL is coming?!?


UPDATE:
That didn't quite work out.. I did see some chatter on the status window with FreeScan, but no other info. No engine data, nothing registering on the dasboard, no DTC (should have one for the A/C).. nada.

No effect with Datamaster either, that still didn't see squat.

Looks like back to square one - another damn laptop

 

I have a pic of the correct settings with Freescan, and KEEP ON HITTING the FORCE DATA button. Wierd, but tap it several times and it goes.

Serial port and parralel are not the same.

 

I beat the snot out of that continuously - gave it a break - did it again, and so on. The information didn't change. The only indication I had that something was going on was the constant stream of stuff in the status window.

Now the parallel, serial thing - I'm not sure what you're getting at there. I'm aware of the difference, but are you suggesting that I make a change wrt the config of the port I set up?

 

When you buy a cable it should come complete, so buying a 25pin adapter threw me, into thinking you were trying to hook it up to a parralel port, which will not work. Serial data is 1 bit at a time, parralel is 8bits at a time, or was it the other way around I'm rusty.

 

Ah, I see..

 

I think the problem is that the laptop DOES NOT have any serial port. The 25-pin connection is for a parallel printer; the 15-pin DB connector is for an external VGA monitor.

You will have to purchase a USB to Serial adaptor - The Belkin F5U103 works with Datamaster altho you will have to select Options...Advanced...Disable CCM Handshake from the serial Data Acquisition menu. If you have the beta vesrion of EE, it will work with the USB adapters if you select Options...Advanced...USB Interface In Use.

Not that not all USB adapters will work with the GM ALDL because of the unusal baud rate requirement of 8192. The Belkin does...

Hope this helps!

Gary

 

use the usb to serial convertor from belkin, thats the one AKM recommends

 

Thanks for the tips, guys.

Plans have changed; I've abandoned the new laptop and am using an old NT machine I reloaded with 98. It's dedicated for this purpose only and is doing it perfectly. The laptop was a gift for my wife for her business trips anyway, she's actually relieved I'm not going to be using it on my car now A toughbook off ebay, however, is going to happen soon.

I'm not mobile with the PC, but it did serve its purpose. I found the problem I was having (broken ground wire) and straightenend it out.


Thanks again..