Following a thread on here, back in the days of a VAGCOM area I decided to order a VAGCOM cable through EBay. The cable cost me US$20 including shipping and arrived very quickly. Sadly I diddnt get a chance to test it and my wife left feedback (she buys/sells a lot on EBay and diddnt realise I had a problem with it)

However, having attempted to use it for the first time yesterday I have to say that its a load of rubbish. VAGCOM is unable to sync the transfer rates between modules and the software and the connector doesnt fit very well into the car. These result in the connection being lost half way through transfer etc.

I found the radio was the only module I could diagnose (albeit with a 30% data transfer failure rate). All other, more complex modules failed after 10-13 attempts by VAGCOM to make a connection.

Be warned. Dont make the mistake I did and buy a cheap one - its now cost me $20 more in the lng term.

I'm not the first to find these cheap cables aren't that great but I fell for it all the same - dont make the same mistake......... please!

Which version of VAG-COM are you using? A lot of the cheaper cables will only work with release 3.11-2 I think - that's certainly all mine will work with, but it does everything I need it to, so I haven't bothered upgrading

Oh and is it USB or serial? There are known syncing problems with the USB cables apparently.........

Chris

Chris - just sent you an email about this actually!

Its funny really, the version I have is exactly the same as yours

I'm using a serial cable but connecting through a USB to serial adaptor (which, works fine with everything else)

I paid close to

I'm using a serial cable but connecting through a USB to serial adaptor (which, works fine with everything else)

YHM

Btw, just pulled this off the Rosstech FAQ site:

1.5 What if my Laptop doesn't have a Serial Port?

We offer our own

USB Interfaces

which use the USB port on your PC, rather than the Serial Port. We even offer

USB Interface Upgrades

for existing Ross-Tech customers. These interfaces work best with Windows XP.

They can be used with Windows 98, ME, or 2000, but performance may be somewhat degraded by using an OS other than Windows XP and compatibility with "difficult" control modules may be reduced.

Realistic hardware requirements for Windows XP and VAG-COM are a 500 MHZ CPU with at least 128 MB of RAM.

Windows XP on a 1 GHz (or faster) PC is preferred.

If you want to use one of our RS-232 Serial interfaces on a PC that doesn't have a serial port, we recommend you buy

this Quatech SSP-100 PCMCIA-Card

. We don't sell them, but we've had excellent results with them. We've got

installation and configuration notes here

.

USB<->RS-232 converters are often unable to handle the baud rate and timing requirements that are demanded by many control modules using the VAG protocol. We have had very poor results with most available USB<->RS-232 converters, therefore

USB<->RS232 converters are "Not Supported." Please do not ask us for technical assistance if you are using one of these converters.

As already mentioned... the problem may be the usb convertor..

ive bought a cheap vagcom lead off ebay and it works a treat very high quality item

Hmm... thats interesting. I'll try one of the work "toughbook" machines which do have a serial port in my lunch break and see if I get better results.

Interesting to see that you can get PCMCIA to RS232 cards though.

Interesting to see that you can get PCMCIA to RS232 cards though.

That's what I use, works perfect with vagcom and lemmiwinks.

lemmiwinks??

lemmiwinks??

It's a bit like APR v-tune but it's free and works with any ECU even standard. It can't be used for increasing boost more than the map allows though.

Update: Just tried the cheapo cable on reliable serial ported laptop. Still the same problem. The Test function in VAGCOM says the same as it did before "Com Port OK, Interface NFG" (yep, it says NFG = no fookin good). Other times it says "Com port OK, baud synch not available"

When I try and read the radio it works fine but on the engine it runs up the baud rates, failing each time, up to 13 at which point it tells you its failed.

Just tried it on boss's A6 and it did the same with that too - looks like the cable to me.

Just placed an order with RS for the bits to make my own cable LOL!

try going into advanced and change the baud rate for the com port to 9600 and also change it it vag com settings too

Best part of 2 years old that one mate.