Hi all,

Ive just tried the free version of VAG-COM (4.091) with an OBD cable and a serial to USB connector which came with it (which are supposed to work with 4.091) and it doesnt want to connect. Can I please check a few things:

How many pins should the OBD end of the cable have?

Do you need the ignition on or off for vag-com to connect?

The led is on on the OBD connector so I assume its physically connected, it could of course be a Laptop-Cable issue. It says USB Human Interface connected when I plug it in so XP is seeing it but I wonder if there is something else up.

Thanks for any advice I appreciate the USB cables are largely untried.

Rgds

Richie

have you downloaded the USB drivers?

For the cable? It came with a CD which I installed. The readme file with them was fairly useless though so that could well be a snag.

Thanks

Richie

The ignition needs to be on for using VAG-COM, but make sure you have the right VAG-COM cable for using v4 of VAG-COM. I built my own cable based on Andy Whittaker's site (www.andywhittaker.com) and it would only work with v311.2 of VAG-COM.......

Chris

I've had to buy a serial cable too, after my USB cable wouldn't be recognised by any laptop / computer I plugged it into.

Yet to verify the serial cable works either, but it should. Using 311.2 as well.

Hmmmm, ok couple of things then I guess. Ill try 311.2 (if its still around) and Ill also contact the cable manufacturer as they are advertised as checked and working with 4.091

Is there anything else which could slip me up? I cant see why a serial cable shouldnt work with a USB-RS232 adaptor, oh well

Thanks for the replies

Rich

And can anyone confirm the number of pins on a OBD cable?

Thanks

R

And can anyone confirm the number of pins on a OBD cable?

Should be 4: K-line, L-Line, +ve and -ve I think........

Chris

Mine has 5 pins on it.

USB to serial RS232 convertors dont work well with VAG-COM. If you have access to a laptop that has a real serial port, try it with that and it will most proberbly work. The problem is something to do with the protocol conversion.

It could also be a problem with the version of windows you are using, if using 95 or 95 OSR2 with basic USB support it almost certainly wont work. You really need 98 SR2 or Win2000 or later.

My cable has 4 pins and Im using XP. I dont have access to a lappy with serial hence why Im stuck with USB. Thanks

Rich

After trying 311.2 without any luck, I tried 4.091 again and its now recognising the cable but when I run any of the tests it tries em 4 times and says unable to find module so I assume its not comunicating properly (in fact it does exactly the same if I unplug it from the OBD and run the test)

Getting a bit sick of it cos I really dont see why it shouldnt work with a USB port and I dont have a serial laptop to try it out with.

Im going to try another couple of OBD readers to confirm the cable is working etc

Anything Im overlooking?

Thanks

Rich

Ross-Tech's HEX+CAN Dual K & CAN <-> USB interface has 16 pins at the OBD connector.

Getting a bit sick of it cos I really dont see why it shouldnt work with a USB port and I dont have a serial laptop to try it out with.

Taken from the Vag-com FAQ

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.

Now you know...

Hmm I see, PCMCIA serial card or a dedicated USB cable, bummer

Update.............I managed to get hold of a USB cable and with a bit of messing about I found the problem was that the cable was installing itself onto COM 8, a tweak in hardware manager allowed me to change that to 4 and so VAG-Com is happy and it comunicates.

Couple of questions before I register the software though, is Engine the only Module which runs in the demo mode??

I had a fault code which I was able to remove, I was under the impression no DTC codes could be cleared with the Demo version.

Thanks again

Rgds

Rich

Couple of questions before I register the software though' date=' is Engine the only Module which runs in the demo mode??

I had a fault code which I was able to remove, I was under the impression no DTC codes could be cleared with the Demo version.[/quote']

From memory, you can interrogate every module with the shareware version, but you can't make any changes to the codings with it. I don't think you can clear fault codes either, but I'm not 100% sure on that......

Chris

Hmm, thats strange then cos I can do just about the opposite

I cant get 5.041 to work so Im using 4.091 which alows me to interogate the Engine module and clear codes but when I interogate any other module the boxes at the bottom are unavailable and it is unable to get a responce from the controller.

Thanks

Rich