VCDS DIAGNOSTIC

[Peter Burgess]

Hi, I've recently bought a 2003 1.9TD.
I bought a VCDS cable & software from ebay & downloaded from ROSS_TECH.
When I connect to the car & laptop with the ignition OFF, I get
Port status ok, interface found. Type: serial pass through.
Opto/Iso:no
Ross-Tech Design:no
Latency Test:poor
7.0  11.0  12.0 (ms)

But when I turn the ignition on & try options I get,

Port Status ok
Interface:not found
Contact Hardware supplier for assistance.

I'm not great with computers, so any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Peter.

[Mirez]

Hi Peter, have you got a factory stereo or is it aftermarket?

Its weird it drops off with ignition. Do you have another car you can try it on?

[Chrispb]

Hello Peter and welcome to our forum
Assuming you're running xp you need to go into device manager and open advanced port properties, once there you can adjust the latency timer to 2 or 3 from the default of 16
You need the lead plugged into the laptop to do this also check that the com port number in device manager is the same as the port number on vcds options page

[Peter Burgess]

Hi guys,
Thanks for your help. I believe the radio to be original.

I am now making progress. With the ignition on I now have passed "test" & entered my chassis type & saved.

I now get Port Status ok.
Interface Found.
Type: Serial pass-through.
Opto/iso:yes
Russ-Tech Design:NO
Unable To Reach 10400 BPS Without Error.

If I try a scan I get Interface Status = -2
Interface not ready
Possible reasons-------
K Line stuck
Firmware update needed.

I've set Latency timer to 3 & USB Transfer Size to 4096.

Sorry to be a pain, but any more ideas?

I feel I'm half way there now!

Regards,

Peter.

[Chrispb]

Am fairly certain you need to update the drivers they can be found below

http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm

[Peter Burgess]

Thank you for your patience & continued help.
My laptop is Windows XP & my notepad Windows 7.
Both were showing the same results a couple of days ago.
I followed the link & download to my laptop, but I appear to have gone back a step.
With the ignition on I now get:
Port status ok
Interface not found, as I originally got.
The notepad still gets me past test, but shows issues listed in my previous post still.

I'm guessing I've got something configured wrong, but I'm too dopey to have any idea what!

If I can sort my cable out, that might help other equally clueless members in the future!

Thanks again,

Peter.

[chris49_2000]

Hi Peter, I've had similar problems with my blue cable brought of ebay and ross-tech download. I get same "Port OK" ,and "Interface not connected", and I am certainly not dopey when it comes to computers and hardware.

Am off right now to try it again with lower latency to see if that helps any....will update the thread if I get any progress.

[chris49_2000]

Still the same, forgot to say last time, the LED loop-back test succeeded with the following results...

LED test with the cable disconnected gave me (see image 1)

LED test with the cable connected (see image 2)

Image 3 is the program options window.

This should mean the cable is working fine as it can test the LED?

[chris49_2000]

Just tried it on my friends S reg passat and got the same errors.
#confused

FYI the chip in the ODB connector has on it:-

FTDI
FT232BM
435-1

The "FT232BM" could be "FT2328M" but i reckon its a B as the font is slightly bigger on the words than numbers.

Seems like the cable was a waste and I was sooooo looking forward to playing.

[SilverBeast]

My Blue lead off ebay needed to use the drivers they provided, definitely NOT the latest drivers from FTDI.  I had to uninstall those completely before it worked.

[Chrispb]

Peter are you sure you have downloaded the right software from Ross Tech? as that version number looks wrong to me.

You should be downloading the software for VCDS-Lite for 3rd party dumb interfaces

http://www.ross-tech.com/vcds-lite/download/index.html

[Peter Burgess]

Thanks again.
Having made the download on my XP laptop, clicking on test a couple of times with the ignition on, I get "interface not found", but on about the 3rd attempt I get "interface found" opto/iso:yes
"Unable to reach 10400 bps without error"
I've no idea what that means, but I'm hoping it's a setting that can be altered on my laptop!
Regards,
Peter.

[djdigitald]

I bought a Blue lead off of eBay, installed the drivers that came with the lead and then installed VCDS lite on both XP and Windows 7 laptops and have had no issues at all. You must install the drivers that came with the lead and no other drivers as they will not work otherwise.

[Peter Burgess]

Thanks.

Does anyone know what "unable to reach 10400BPS without error" means?

Is there a setting on my laptop I can change to overcome this?

I think I'm reaching "give up" point soon!

Regards,

Peter.

[Chrispb]

Hello peter
I was going to suggest I could scan your car for you as we don't seem to be getting to the bottom of the problem.
I know it's not the answer your looking for but at least can read of any faults you may have, perhaps we could meet up  somewhere or you're welcome to come down to Chatham.

Ps have you tried completely uninstalling the program and starting afresh.

[djdf1]

had exactly the same with  my mk2 2002 played about with the com ports mine is now on com 4 hey presto it started working hope this helps