Prop Prof. Development Board / USB / Vista issues

RobertW

I·purchased·a new laptop·computer and the Propeller Prof. Development Board for Christmas.· I quickly realized that I also needed the USB driver.· I downloaded this from another computer, copied it to·a USB flash drive, and·installed it on·the new computer.· Everything seemed to work properly.· I had gone through exercise 4 in the Propeller Manual, and the lights on the board were blinking, and I was all smiles.· The next day, I then installed·DSL internet service and a wireless router.· Now·when I try to download a Spin program to the board a window pops up and says No Serial Ports·Found.· I have read the help·PDF from the Parallax site and have tried to download a driver from the FTDI website with no luck.··There was something in the Parallax help that·mentioned laptop computers may need to have the Latency Timer reduced.··I could not find where/how to do·this.· The FTDI help information shows different ports under the device manager.· I don't see anything like this (maybe this is part of·the problem).· I do see USB Controlers shown.· I have a flash drive that I can·insert and read so I know the port works.· I just don't know why it will not detect, and send the data to the board.· Either I don't know enough of where Vista now puts things or·I am over looking somthing.· With many Propeller users out there, hopefully·someone can steer me in the right direction.· Any suggestions would be appreciated.· Thank you.

- frustrated Rob

RobertW

Also, yes the board is turned on.

mikediv

Hi Rob I will try and help,, first you didnt say what laptop I have a new Dell XPS with Vista first I had to go into the Rom setup when you boot the laptop usally F2 or F1 and turn on com1 then hit save bios then in vista go into the control panel and doublw click on device manager then go down and click on com ports and see if there is a com port listed on my dell it says com port 10
if that is not there then you have a usb driver problem usally the ftdi I have a known good driver for the dell XPS with Vista and service pack 1, one more thing not to get side track but make sure you have installed all the microsoft patches go into windows update and hit it to make sure there were a few usb driver updates that were needed, ok I got off topic email me for the driver if you dont have it butif you do unplug the prop and any usb stuff and reload the driver , reboot and plug in the prop usb go back into control panel device manger and check and see if com port is there it will say USB serial port (com10) for me maybe some other number for you but it has to say USB com port do that first and see how far you get I will check back usally its just a matter of installing the usb driver ftd and reseting also stupid question but if you have the prop stick you also need power beside the USB
·

RobertW

Thanks for the help. I have a HP Pavilion dv5. I performed a Windows update so I believe my computer is up-to-date. I restarted the computer and tried changing the BIOS to turn on the COM port. I did not see any place to turn on/off the COM port. I also checked the Device Manager and do not see any COM ports listed there. I hate to think that there is a problem with the USB driver on a new computer out of the box but I guess it is possible. I will keep working on it. Any additional suggestions are appreciated. Thanks

-Rob W.

RobertW

Hi Mike,
In trying different things, I went back to Windows update and had it check for available updates. While it was doing this I unplugged the power to the development board and unplugged the USB cord. I then plugged the USB cord back in. A window popped up and said that it was installing the USB driver updates. Everything seemed to go through correctly. I turned the power on to the board and was able to send a program to the Propeller chip. Everything seems to be working correctly now. Thanks for the help. Hopefully it stays working this time.

- Rob W.

Oldbitcollector (Jeff)

What happens if you move the USB connection to a different port?
Sometimes this will force a re-detect.

OBC

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New to the Propeller?

Check out: Protoboard Introduction , Propeller Cookbook 1.4 & Software Index
Updates to the Cookbook are now posted to: Propeller.warrantyvoid.us
Got an SD card connected? - PropDOS

mikediv

good deal , I am gald to see I am not the only nerd on new years eve playing with my projects LOL
oldbit thats a good point sometimes that does help who knows why I know on my Dell boxes moving the usb cable too a differant port right next to old one does have an effect. Oh well you have to love Vista well not really I hate it but its the only way to go on laptops rght now , I am a beta tester for microsoft just wait until you see the next version coming down the pike, can you say HUGE BLOATED you will need 4 gig ram just to run it. I have been watching the CPM fourm and laughing to myself , I have an old
S-100 bus CPM system, it has 64K big giant 188K floppies but it can run ashton tates dbase , word star , lotus spread sheet and the OS all in 64K of ram I also have MPM if anyone remembers that running on 64K multi user we have come so far I guess I know have desktops and a laptop with Gigs of ram and they run 10X slower with Terabytes of disk storage and its a joke to watch my old CPM machines smoke microsoft stuff even accessing the floppies
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RobertW

Old Bit Collector,

I have not tried moving the USB plug to another port to force a re-detect but the following method seems to work.
1. Turn on computer with USB/ Propeller board unpluged and unpowered.
2. After Windows starts up completely, plug in USB with the board still unpowered.
3. Wait a few seconds for the USB to be detected.
4. Switch the power on to the board.

Maybe this is how I should have been doing it from the begining. Some are probably out there reading this thinking Duh! I also think I needed to download some Windows updates (Thanks for the suggestion Mike). Why it worked for a while, then did not work I still don't really know. It could have been a combination of things.

- Rob W.

hover1

First post, also a test.

I remember running my old Radio Shack Color Computer on OS-9 system on 64K of RAM also. My Altair 8800 S-100 had a whopping 8K of RAM. It's a wonder we got anything done [noparse]:)[/noparse]

Jim


good deal , I am gald to see I am not the only nerd on new years eve playing with my projects LOL
oldbit thats a good point sometimes that does help who knows why I know on my Dell boxes moving the usb cable too a differant port right next to old one does have an effect. Oh well you have to love Vista well not really I hate it but its the only way to go on laptops rght now , I am a beta tester for microsoft just wait until you see the next version coming down the pike, can you say HUGE BLOATED you will need 4 gig ram just to run it. I have been watching the CPM fourm and laughing to myself , I have an old
S-100 bus CPM system, it has 64K big giant 188K floppies but it can run ashton tates dbase , word star , lotus spread sheet and the OS all in 64K of ram I also have MPM if anyone remembers that running on 64K multi user we have come so far I guess I know have desktops and a laptop with Gigs of ram and they run 10X slower with Terabytes of disk storage and its a joke to watch my old CPM machines smoke microsoft stuff even accessing the floppies

Oldbitcollector (Jeff)

My reasoning for trying a different USB port is sound.
I fix PC's for a living and I've noticed that many USB devices re-detect/re-load
their drivers if I accidentally plug them into a different port. I'm curious if
these drivers may act the same way. (I hadn't thought to test this yet.)

(and I'm kind of a fan of simple solutions.. [noparse]:)[/noparse]

OBC

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
New to the Propeller?

Check out: Protoboard Introduction , Propeller Cookbook 1.4 & Software Index
Updates to the Cookbook are now posted to: Propeller.warrantyvoid.us
Got an SD card connected? - PropDOS