Synful

Ive searched far and wide, extensively on iroczone.com, thirdgen.org, and moates.net tech help forums, but i can't find an answer

I downloaded and installed on my old laptop, "Craig Moates" GM ECM Communications Software version 8.52

I changed all of the settings to fit my car, 1988 Iroc-Z 305 TPI, so I set it to 165 ECM, and all that good stuff, but i left COM set to 1

i am using an AKM cable, serial port, to connect my laptop to the car

i got in the car and plugged in the cable and opened the program and clicked on one of the things to see if it worked, and it says to keep pressing 1 until i hear a beep. there is no beep and the program locks up

says sending request: and then some numbers, and then to the right it has receiving echo/response and nothing is next to that. and it is locked up

i don't know if you press and hold 1 until it beeps or if you tap it repeatedly until it beeps.

also the program says this program is intended for use with a MAX-232 type circuit going to 86-92 GM TPI MAF/MAP ALDL pin E or M /w/ common ground to pin A. so i think that's right for my car right? then it says Ensure that 10k ohm resistor is across pins A B for MAF to allow link. I think the AKM cable is 10 resistor cuz it says 10K on the back of the female pice connecting the serial cable to the ALDL cable

when im trying to connect the key is off and the car is off, ive also tried it with the car on and with the key to the on position.

I looked at my ALDL too, it looks like im missing the following pins from it, I don't know if thats normal or not: D, F, H, I, J, K, L

any help is appreciated

Craig Moates

Are you using WinXP or 2k? If so, it just won't work.

Synful

Windows 95 on an old Pentium 1 laptop

connected using a serial cable from AKM cables with a 10k resistor

btw i downloaded and tried WINALDL and it works perfectly....but i heard its not as good as moates and also i don't quite understand the numbers yet, i look at moate's info it gives you in offline mode and it looks really cool like 1/4 mile times and all that critical value summary data i can't wait till it works.

i double checked COM port and its 1 and setting is to 1 and also a bunch of other stuff from threads ive searched

do i turn on the car, then select the option then press and hold 1 key? how long should it take?

any other ideas of why it won't work?

thanks craig

junkcltr

iTrader: (1)

That is a great ALDL reader. You need to run it in MS-DOS mode. Don't run it under any Windows. A quick search for MS-DOS will give you the exact method to run it properly.

Synful

i'll give the running it in DOS thing a try

Synful

does not work in dos either

Craig Moates

Gotta have the 10k installed there. Might be worth splitting the ALDL adapter case to check it out.

junkcltr

iTrader: (1)

You could also put an ohm meter on it to check the 10K resistor.

I had a 1986 TPI bin ($32 BCC) that would not connect no matter how many times I tried. It would always connect to the 1989 ARAD ($6E CC) but would do the 165 ECM ALDL lock up at random and stop transmitting. Required an engine shutdown to get the ALDL working again.

Craig Moates

Anyone ever figure that random lockup out? Used to bug me too when I ran the $6E in my own car.

Synful

what the heck is $6E

i just have a normal ECM 165, im not trying to burn anything I just want to diagnose my engine

btw it DOES have the 10K resistor built into it, you're saying you think the resistor is defective? i just tested it and it says 9.90K ohms across the A and B pins

but again, I don't know about this $32 BCC and ARAD and all that stuff you guys made reference too

any other ideas?

Synful

ooookay, well I inadvertedly figured out my problem

I have no idea if it was a collection of things or not, but the thing that makes the program change from not working, to working is really strange

pressing F8 on load up I get options on how I want to do. I chose an option called step by step configuration

next I pressed the ESC key repeatedly until I got to a command prompt.

next I loaded the application and it worked perfectly.

now this is strange, or maybe not, because my knowledge of DOS is limited, before when I tried, I loaded windows, went to shutdown, and selected restart in MS-DOS mode, and through that command prompt it gave me after restarting, it did not work, it froze up.

oh well, I don't know, great app craig, now to rest up and figure out what all these numbers mean!

junkcltr

iTrader: (1)

That is kind of how you were support to do it.
Keep pressing F8 on startup. Choose "command prompt only" at the menu. Then do a "cd" to the ecm852 directory or where ever you installed it.

Craig Moates

Also, before you get into a headache with it, make sure you put the program in a 'simple' directory like "C:\ECM852\". If you have some long drawn-out non-dos-happy directory name, like on your Windows desktop, the program will freak.

Synful

i know craig, i put the folder in the default directory it goes to when command prompt loads.


junkcltr:

i pressed the command prompt only key and it didn't work through that mode either, and I double checked this a couple of times

it will absolutely only work if i select step-by-step configuration, then escape key until it gives me a command prompt

so strange

now i experienced a freeze up after only 138seconds of engine time running, which is decent, but unfortunately it didn't save the logged info

maybe a suggestion for an improvement would be for the program to automatically save the spreadsheet everytime the program updates with new information, so the entire thing isn't lost

great program otherwise, i love the grapher

junkcltr

iTrader: (1)

not strange at all. You have something in the autoexec.bat file that loads and causes the problem. Or it could be the the config.sys. When you load step-by-step you are telling it not to load the driver that is trying to load in DOS. Some program inserted a line in the start-up files that really shouldn't be there.
Use the step-by-step mode if it works for you.

EDIT: Yes, you'll get lock-ups. Only way around that is digging into the 165 code and doing a little re-write. Ask Craig, but I think the ECM852 is a done deal. You can't even modify it yourself. I think that was the first version of "closed source". I think.......ask Craig.

Craig Moates

Actually 'lost' the source code for it in a hard drive crash shuffle. But you can always go back to the ECM850B code. It should be by and large equivalent, and is available for download also. I think the only major update was the addition of the 93 LT1 stuff and some externalization. But you could use that as a basis if you want to play with it. The hope was always that folks would improve upon it. I do some stuff in there to 'buffer' some of the data to keep from writing to the disk continuously, but even so, it ought to be 'recoverable'. I thought there was a failsafe which buttoned up the file upon comm errors and that sort of thing.

junkcltr

iTrader: (1)

Having a hard drive go bad sucks. I always liked that ECM8XX ALDL reader. It was easy to read and the cvs file writing was nice. I never tried the newer graphing feature. It worked great on the 486 laptop. You wouldn't happen to have a $58 .dat file kicking around for it?

Craig Moates

No, wish I did. However, by using the open source which is available on the ECM850B download, it wouldn't be too bad to add the support. Probably take an hour or so, once you find your way around. Although I think there are some nuances with the SyTy code, since there is a little more than just request/response on Mode1 required.

Looking back, the graphing stuff was fairly wicked. A bit keyboard-intensive, but definitely over the top. I outdid myself a bit ;^).

Seriously though, if someone wants to tweak, improve, add to, or modify the program, please run with it. It's definitely intended to be something open to user contribution.