NVRAM/ALDL Connection and Error messages and worse

160 And 8192 Baud Aldl
TorqueItUp
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NVRAM/ALDL Connection and Error messages and worse

Post by TorqueItUp »

Just before I outline this particular issue if anyone reading this saw my previous thread regarding losing power after plugging in it was just an issue with the negative battery terminal that coincided with plugging in the ALDL cable. After sorting that I had the car running again (supercharged Ecotec, PCMhacking NVRAM & ALDL Cable) without the cable plugged in.

On the previous occasion I had not touched a thing other than to plug in and start up TunerproRT. I did not get the chance to emulate, connect or log due to losing power. I turned the engine over a couple of times, it died, I left it. Repaired the terminal last week, started the car and moved it a couple of metres back and forth last weekend.

A couple of days ago I attempted to connect the ALDL cable again to connect and start logging and learning as I am a a well read noob here and I have a lot to fully understand (i.e. what every parameter does exactly and how it effects driveability and performance) and again, I've hit a wall.

As I said, I've read and read and believe I had the procedure correct. I know I have the appropriate files loaded (.bin, .adx, .xdf). I connected the cable with the igniton off to both car and laptop. I started the car. Launched TunerproRT. Pressed the "Emulate" button and it detected the Hardware.

I then pressed "Connect" and that was when things started to go wrong.

I got a green light saying "Connected" and then almost immediately it started flashing red. It was logging errors multiple times a second. I would estimate it threw over 500 errors in 20 odd seconds. It would flash red and green.

To make matters worse, as mentioned, I could start it previously but now I have just discovered I have no spark.

I've already had to replace the NVRAM once due to a combination of rushing and my own stupidity creating a dead short but that was months ago and I had no problem whatsover starting it until I did exactly as I've stated above last weekend and now I have no ignition!

Have I stuffed this procedure? What could this be?

Just as a matter of note, I've spent hours trawling before posting and as far as the connection issue/insane error logs goes I don't have another cable to try, I can only get Tunerpro to show the Dashboard on the oldest laptop I have, a 15 year old HP 2.0GHz Dual Core, 3.0Gb RAM unit running XP I dug out. The dashboard won't show on either the POS ACER I'm currently typing on (W7 Celeron garbage) nor the fairly recent 64bit W10 I7 2.5GHz 16GB RAM.

The laptop is running off it's own battery power so the only cable connected is (was) the ALDL. I tried all 3 USB ports with no noticeable difference.

I was reading another thread regarding latency/timeout and I even checked that before discovering the issue was long since resolved in an update to The1's Enhanced Code so any issues there had already long been resolved.

I was going to disconnect the ABS as that had also been suggested as a possible issue but just prior, with having been unable to start the car since plugging in the ALDL cable the first time, I checked for spark as it just felt like it had none and sure enough, no spark.

So... can't connect, log, or tune and now no spark. I could start diagnosing that individually, component by component but this time I think it's no coincidence it has something to do with the connection of the cable and laptop. Absolutely nothing else has been touched, all new sensors, DFI, Coil Packs, the lot. I cannot imagine it being anything else other than an NVRAM issue now but....

How, why, what the?? Really starting to fray the threads.

And no, I don't have an EPROM programmer; once it's actually got a tune on it that was my intention.

Also, I'm currently in Adelaide. I desperately need this thing going and I was not expecting the dramas I've had, despite being utterly convinced there's a Murphy somewhere in my bloodlines if anyone in Adelaide wants to help with this or knows someone suitably experienced and with the necessary equipment, despite really wanting this to be a 100% owner built project, I just don't have the time to muck around anymore and I'm willing to pay for assistance.

All help massively appreciated.

And I still have to get a tune on to it to get it moveable after all this and that looks like being more difficult than the WOT fuel and timing!! I have no idea where to start there!! :o
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antus
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Re: NVRAM/ALDL Connection and Error messages and worse

Post by antus »

What car do you have? What xdf and adx are you using? How do you have the echo setting configured in OSE Plugin?

I run these tools on Windows 10 and you shouldnt require an old laptop, and in fact I dont think tunerpro officially supports XP anymore. A number of years ago I reported a bug against XP and was told by the author that he is not testing on XP and wont fix it. Thats probably not your biggest problem if the laptop looks OK, but It'd be worth coming back to that and making it work on something newer once you are generally up and running.
Have you read the FAQ? For lots of information and links to significant threads see here: http://pcmhacking.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1396
TorqueItUp
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Re: NVRAM/ALDL Connection and Error messages and worse

Post by TorqueItUp »

Thanks Antus

What car do you have? What xdf and adx are you using? How do you have the echo setting configured in OSE Plugin?

Vt V6 Supercharged

VT_V6_SC_$A5G_Enhanced_v1.3.bin VT_V6_SC_$A5G_Enhanced_v1.3d.adx VT_V6_SC_$A5G_Enhanced_v1.3g.xdf as suplied by Gareth with the NVRAM

Cable Echo in OSE Plugin is unchecked.

Yeah I have no idea why either of the other laptops won't show the Dashboard. The W10 isn't mine. The other two are. I rarely use a laptop these days and I had planned to use the Acer as my car laptop because it's so light and less cumbersome than the old HP warhorse. On this Acer Celeron it appears there's not enough system resources to launch the dashboard (I have a taskbar icon but that's it, it's unresponsive) but the i7, you'd think that'd be fine but it's identical IIRC. I'm not touching that one. I was loathe to load TunerPro on it in the first place because the moment something doesn't work as expected for the owner it would be my fault by default.

So.... Did I get that Cable Echo bit right. I thought it was meant to be unchecked for the VT but I'm happy to admit that Ive actually read so much I could have easily swapped it around in my mind.

One thing I did notice that was weird was that the COM port was unselected. Now I KNOW I selected it previously when I setup the OSE Plugin tool so I'm going to check it again in a few minutes.

Also, I forgot to mention, when I had all the errors I shut down Tunerpro and got an Application Error that means nothing to me.

"The instruction at 0x7c910a19 referenced memory at 0xd6800000. The memory could not be read" and I had to terminate the program.
TorqueItUp
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Re: NVRAM/ALDL Connection and Error messages and worse

Post by TorqueItUp »

I just went out and plugged in again with the Echo Settings still switched off. I now cannot even detect the NVRAM hardware. It did previously. I turned Cable Echo on as I now believe I should've based on the thread below but no difference.

It seems likely that the NVRAM has been corrupted, yeah? I mean no spark, can't detect the hardware....?

Why? All I did was plug in and follow the procedure outlined which I got from this thread. viewtopic.php?f=3&t=590

Looks like I'll be looking for a burner. Massive PITA.

I've also read another thread where I get the impression I can move a jumper to access a stacked .bin. Is that right? If I could get that to work until I can get an eraser and burner then I could try to connect again, particularly if having the "Cable Echo" box unchecked was the cause of these issues.

I don't have time left today but I'm going to see if I can locate the original EPROM tomorrow and chuck that in and I fully expect it to start once it has a readable tune on it. Then it's back to the original errors issue which I'm expecting to still be there before I can finally get around to getting it mobile.

Still happy to pay anyone who can help me expedite this.
Last edited by TorqueItUp on Fri Jul 03, 2020 4:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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antus
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Re: NVRAM/ALDL Connection and Error messages and worse

Post by antus »

Yeah it doesnt sound good. Did you leave it write protected up to this point while you get the setup right? If not, it probably has been corrupted :( But dont give up on that yet. What ALDL interface are you using? Echo depends on the interface, but nearly all require echo turned on, definitely the pcmhacking ones do.
Have you read the FAQ? For lots of information and links to significant threads see here: http://pcmhacking.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1396
TorqueItUp
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Re: NVRAM/ALDL Connection and Error messages and worse

Post by TorqueItUp »

antus wrote:Yeah it doesnt sound good. Did you leave it write protected up to this point while you get the setup right? If not, it probably has been corrupted :( But dont give up on that yet. What ALDL interface are you using? Echo depends on the interface, but nearly all require echo turned on, definitely the pcmhacking ones do.
Hi again Antus. I've edited my previous post with a few more details.

In response to these questions....

I'm using the ALDL cable supplied by Gareth with the NVRAM.

I actually haven't touched the jumpers at this stage. IIRC it was on RW which I believe is Read/Write and which again, I thought to be correct until I did not want to write to it. I initially planned to run the car off the NVRAM but reading threads on the forum it's suggested to tune with the NVRAM then burn the .bin to an EPROM and I understand the reason for this but I only read this in the last week and didn't think I'd need a burner so soon. Well... again, assumption at this stage. I don't know if I can use the OSE Flashtool to upload the bin via the laptop once I get the connection issues sorted.

So thinking while I'm typing, if I can access a stacked .bin which is a copy of the corrupted .bin, can I use the flashtool to upoad that or will I need a burner/programmer? I know i'll need it to flash the EPROM but from what I understand, if the cable is working without a million errors I should be able to do that?

Yeah, like I said, I'm a noob, passionate to learn but with a head utterly crammed full of new information. Oh and I'm way closer to the grave than the cradle so I'm not sure the information soaks in nearly as well as a few decades ago, you know back when jets and power valves were how I tuned. This is just slightly more complex.

Cheers.
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delcowizzid
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Re: NVRAM/ALDL Connection and Error messages and worse

Post by delcowizzid »

If the write jumper was on it may be corrupted flashing blue red blue red is wrong echo setting don't click emulate just click detect hardware then click the connection arrows and set the echo setting to whatever stops your errors then you click emulate when you want to make changes.
If Its Got Gas Or Ass Count Me In.if it cant be fixed with a hammer you have an electrical problem
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Re: NVRAM/ALDL Connection and Error messages and worse

Post by j_ds_au »

TorqueItUp wrote: So thinking while I'm typing, if I can access a stacked .bin which is a copy of the corrupted .bin, can I use the flashtool to upoad that or will I need a burner/programmer? I know i'll need it to flash the EPROM but from what I understand, if the cable is working without a million errors I should be able to do that?
If your bin is corrupted such that you can't get spark, then it also won't be able to do other stuff, like uploading. I don't think stacked bins apply to your VT case, I think the NVRAM would be 128kB, the same size as the O/S, so you wouldn't have two O/S copies in there such that you could flip a jumper and run off the spare copy. So you do need a programmer (assuming your bin is corrupted).

Joe.
TorqueItUp
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Re: NVRAM/ALDL Connection and Error messages and worse

Post by TorqueItUp »

Thanks Joe. That settles that.

OK, time to find a programmer, stat.

Thanks everyone.
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Re: NVRAM/ALDL Connection and Error messages and worse

Post by antus »

The stacked bin are not for the PCM code. Be very careful about not mis-matching operating systems and/or calibrations. If you upload a calibration for the wrong OS, or an in compatible OS, either the data will be so out of whack it'll crash the operating system, or the operating system if it mismatches hardware wont run at all. Either way, you end up needing to go back to the start and put the right calibration and os on the nvram to get the computer running and talking over the ALDL. For programmers i'd currently recommend any type of TL866 from ebay.
Have you read the FAQ? For lots of information and links to significant threads see here: http://pcmhacking.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1396
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