USB to Serial on Windows-8

[Ángel Martin]

With my XP machine finally gone for good to see the wizard I'm fighting the Win-8 absurdity at the moment. The biggest problem I have it with the USB to serial port adaptor; it appers that some/all Prolific chips are not supported. Tried all the suitable drivers available at their web site to no avail, so I'm about to throw the towel and move to a FTDI choice.

http://prolificusa.com/pl-2303hx-drivers/

Does anyone know if the FTDI unit will be compatible with the PIC programmer used for the Clonix/NoVORAM?? Needless to say that and the CL serial link are amongst my most important applications and I need them to work!

Thanks,
ÁM

[ElectroDuende]

(04-20-2015 12:44 PM)Ángel Martin Wrote:  With my XP machine finally gone for good to see the wizard I'm fighting the Win-8 absurdity at the moment. The biggest problem I have it with the USB to serial port adaptor; it appers that some/all Prolific chips are not supported. Tried all the suitable drivers available at their web site to no avail, so I'm about to throw the towel and move to a FTDI choice.

http://prolificusa.com/pl-2303hx-drivers/

Does anyone know if the FTDI unit will be compatible with the PIC programmer used for the Clonix/NoVORAM?? Needless to say that and the CL serial link are amongst my most important applications and I need them to work!

Thanks,
ÁM

I had similar experiences when starting working with W8. I had another cable, from FTDI (this one: US232R-100 - Premium USB - RS232 Serial Converter Cable) that I had used with severan devices (from Hi-Lo multi IC programmer to multimeters, oscilloscopes... even an HP48G) and seems to work on W8 (although in this enviroment I have only tested some specific boards based on 8051 or PIC MCU's).

[Bill (Smithville NJ)]

(04-20-2015 12:44 PM)Ángel Martin Wrote:  With my XP machine finally gone for good to see the wizard I'm fighting the Win-8 absurdity at the moment. The biggest problem I have it with the USB to serial port adaptor; it appers that some/all Prolific chips are not supported. Tried all the suitable drivers available at their web site to no avail, so I'm about to throw the towel and move to a FTDI choice.

http://prolificusa.com/pl-2303hx-drivers/

Does anyone know if the FTDI unit will be compatible with the PIC programmer used for the Clonix/NoVORAM?? Needless to say that and the CL serial link are amongst my most important applications and I need them to work!

Thanks,
ÁM

Hi Ángel,

My system is Windows 8 also and I've gone through the same set of problems as you - only with my Ham Radio equipment. Some use the prolific chips and some use the FTDI. So I have both installed. I was fortunate that I had "real" FTDI cables and not the counterfeit ones, so I avoided the fiasco that happened a few months ago. The FTDI just auto installed and worked with no problems.

The last radio I bought this year came with a prolific cable and they gave me a driver that worked fine. It was an older driver than what is on prolific's website - version 1.8.0. One thing you have to watch for - don't plug the cable in until after you install the driver. Otherwise Windows will auto-install the wrong driver and the cable won't see the correct driver.

If you want to try my driver, you can download it from following Yaesu web page:

SCU-19 USB Driver

The one I used was for the SCU-19 USB at the bottom of the page.

I don't know if this will work with your cable or not, but might be worth a try.

Bill
Smithville, NJ

[CosmicTruth]

I just ordered a FTDI Chipi-X10 Cables, I hope will work for my problem (linking win8.1 to TDS HP 48GX data collector RS232). Unfortunately my 48GX is on its last leg too.

[androgenix]

Hi Angel and all!

I was also hit by the same issue of Windows 8 desupport of prolific PL2303HXA chips used in the K149-BC USB PIC programmer for NoV-64 but I found a solution if still of interest.

Apparently, Prolific deliberately fails the start of their latest driver with error 10 for Windows 8 desupported chips such as above.

The solution per the link in the following thread is to force install of an earlier driver without the offending check:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windo...34f8137645

Worked for me like a charm!

In summary, if under Device Manager you have a yellow triangle against the Serial Port device for the Prolific 2303 chipset used by the K149-BC USB PIC programmer with status report error 10 do the following:
1. Select the Serial Port device with yellow triangle in Device Manager, press delete to uninstall the device and check the box to delete the driver software as well.
2. Install the older driver from the source from the following link and reboot as necessary. (it may still report existing driver software to delete despite #1):
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7Fildjs...sp=sharing
3. You should find the USB programmer is ok now and microbrn.exe etc should work. Note if at some point later Windows seems to automatically restore latest drivers so that you get the same issue again you either have to 'Roll Back Driver' if that option is available under Device Manager device driver properties or repeat the above process - an irritation I don't know yet how to resolve permanently but happy enough with this solution!

Hope that helps!

BTW thanks Angel, Diego and others for your respective amazing contributions to the HP41 device and community!

[rprosperi]

(05-24-2015 05:31 PM)androgenix Wrote:  Hi Angel and all!

I was also hit by the same issue of Windows 8 desupport of prolific PL2303HXA chips used in the K149-BC USB PIC programmer for NoV-64 but I found a solution if still of interest.

Apparently, Prolific deliberately fails the start of their latest driver with error 10 for Windows 8 desupported chips such as above.

The solution per the link in the following thread is to force install of an earlier driver without the offending check:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windo...34f8137645

Worked for me like a charm!

In summary, if under Device Manager you have a yellow triangle against the Serial Port device for the Prolific 2303 chipset used by the K149-BC USB PIC programmer with status report error 10 do the following:
1. Select the Serial Port device with yellow triangle in Device Manager, press delete to uninstall the device and check the box to delete the driver software as well.
2. Install the older driver from the source from the following link and reboot as necessary. (it may still report existing driver software to delete despite #1):
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7Fildjs...sp=sharing
3. You should find the USB programmer is ok now and microbrn.exe etc should work. Note if at some point later Windows seems to automatically restore latest drivers so that you get the same issue again you either have to 'Roll Back Driver' if that option is available under Device Manager device driver properties or repeat the above process - an irritation I don't know yet how to resolve permanently but happy enough with this solution!

Hope that helps!

BTW thanks Angel, Diego and others for your respective amazing contributions to the HP41 device and community!

Thank YOU for posting this helpful note including links to the s/w that works. This place is great for many reasons but a big one is that most folks take the time to document solutions to problems once they work them out, just like this.

[Ángel Martin]

(05-24-2015 05:31 PM)androgenix Wrote:  The solution per the link in the following thread is to force install of an earlier driver without the offending check:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windo...34f8137645

Thanks you for the reference. I tried it too with unstable results - the driver was re-installed to the "updated" version so often than it made the experience unbearable. I finally had it and returned the Win-8 machine, swapped it with a win-7 Pro system where none of that nonsense exists - and where the OS behaves like an OS as opposed to a GameBoy on steroids...

But the effort wasn't in vain, we've learned how to get things working against the sinister ploys of the OS: by the time I got rid of it I had succeeded in getting all work: MicroBurn, CL transfer, and MLDL2k - but life is too short to spend it fighting the Windoze beast!

Cheers,
'AM

[androgenix]

Well, I have found it to be quite stable after I used the 'Rollback Driver' option when it presented itself. Not sure what circumstances enables that option after an automatic upgrade but guessing that it tells Windows that I really want that old driver? Having said that, I'm sure Windows is watching now and will prove me wrong very shortly and heaven knows what will happen when we get to Windows 10 and beyond!

Seriously though, while I'm no fanboy of MS, this looks more like a Prolific choice to drive the market to newer chipsets. As far as I can see if it can work under Windows 7 64-bit then there is no real reason it can't work under Windows 8 apart from a bit more effort on driver signing and they did that anyway to support the newer chips, so? Then again I haven't disassembled the thing and checked it that deep...

Either way, it is concerning that our perfectly good hardware may be rendered obsolete without use of obsolete OS/chipset driver at some point...guess some suits somewhere sees that as progress...but if it means I need to buy a new compatible burner I will.

Meanwhile, a 30+ year old calculator design lives on oblivious, unchanged yet amazing things still built upon it by you all...thank you!