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DecoderPro: USB-to-Serial Adapter Malfunction

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  • Member since
    June 2006
  • From: Baltimore, MD
  • 1,726 posts
Posted by CSX_road_slug on Wednesday, September 25, 2013 9:38 PM

Thank you everybody for your responses!  

I think it's becoming more clear that I need to do a reset of the PhPro.  I'll have one of my local NCE veteran friends walk me thru that procedure so I don't hose anything else.

FYI - I won't be returning to this thread anymore, since I got the help I needed.

-Ken in Maryland  (B&O modeler, former CSX modeler)

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  • From: Reading, PA
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Posted by rrinker on Wednesday, September 25, 2013 6:24 PM

 That's with the PowerCab and the NCE USB. He has a PowerPro system and is using a USB to serial adapter to connect to the port ont he command station. There is something about powering up the command station before connecting to the computer or something, but it sounds like he is doing it int he right order.

 

 Might be easier for his friend to pull the wires of his PH Pro and bring that over and verify, since the OP took his computer to the friend's house and it worked fine there - really does sound like a command station issue and not Windows or a driver.

 

 As far as the situation with my Lokprogrammer - the software actually does a specific check for the Prolific driver, if found, it will not run. I just swapped it out with some gernic USB to serial cable I got a few years ago (pre-Win7) from Radio Shack, and it works fine - and in the meantime, the Prolific cable works just fine under JMRI. I'm not sure what issue ESU has with the Prolific chipset cables, and only under Win7 - under XP you can use the Prolifica cable all you want. They stopped shipping a Prolific cable with the device and switched to someone else, so new purchases won;t have to worry.

                  --Randy

 


Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's

 

Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.

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  • From: Gateway City
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Posted by yankee flyer on Wednesday, September 25, 2013 5:23 PM

Hi Guys

There is a quirk with the NCE and the USB adapter with the Decoder Pro. I haven't had my system up and running in some time, so my Senor moments keep me from remembering what it was. There was something  if you did something wrong you had to reboot the NCE Power Cab or ??????? Sorry I couldn't be more help.
I think I found the answer on the Decoder Pro site. I have Windows 7.

Good luck

Lee

  • Member since
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  • From: Baltimore, MD
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Posted by CSX_road_slug on Wednesday, September 25, 2013 12:58 PM

Thanks Karl, I just might take you up on that!

I remember the heartburn you had with those SD24's - I guess it could happen to any of us.

-Ken in Maryland  (B&O modeler, former CSX modeler)

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  • From: Central Absurdistan
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Posted by kbkchooch on Wednesday, September 25, 2013 11:24 AM

Train Modeler

Is it practical to connect YOUR NCE system to HIS computer and see how it works?

Richard

Ken

Richard makes a great point there, maybe another computer will eliminate Windows 8. Heck, you can bring it over here if Keith is busy. 

Stranger things have happened. I had 3 QSI equipped engine driving my NCE bonkers at one point, even though all my other engines ran fine with sound. I was ready to send them back to Atlas! Took em to Keiths house, the ran great. Sent my system to Larry at NCE and he did find a problem on one of the boards. He also updated the e-prom. Been great since!

Karl

NCE über alles! Thumbs Up

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Posted by Train Modeler on Wednesday, September 25, 2013 10:50 AM

Is it practical to connect YOUR NCE system to HIS computer and see how it works?

Richard

  • Member since
    June 2006
  • From: Baltimore, MD
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Posted by CSX_road_slug on Wednesday, September 25, 2013 8:24 AM

rrinker
Have you restarted lately, or do you always just hibernate the laptop when you are done?

I normally just let it hibernate.  But I did try restarting after I reinstalled the driver - no effect whatsoever.

rrinker
Are you connecting and powering on the devices in the same order as you did when testing it at your friend's?

AFAIK, I am; the PhPro is turned on and plugged into the adapter, then I plug the adapter into the same USB port that I did when my friend and I were testing it.  I had my friend repeat the hookup sequence several times at his place so I would be sure to get it right.

rrinker
Funny it works at all - I can't use the Prolific adapter that came with my Loksound Programmer under Windows 7, they detect it and stop the program, even though the Win 7 drivers load fine.

That's worrisome - it would mean that even if I downgrade to Windows 7, I may still have problems. I wonder if your Loksound device is only designed to run on 32-bit platforms?

-Ken in Maryland  (B&O modeler, former CSX modeler)

  • Member since
    February 2002
  • From: Reading, PA
  • 30,002 posts
Posted by rrinker on Wednesday, September 25, 2013 6:43 AM

 That is a really wierd error for it not loading the driver properly. Have you restarted lately, or do you always just hibernate the laptop when you are done? (I always shut mine down, not just close the lid and let it hibernate).

 It's POSSIBLE that it won;t load the driver properly unless it sees activity on the serial end, which could mean a problem with your PH Pro. Are you connecting and powering on the devices in the same order as you did when testing it at your friend's?

 Funny it works at all - I can't use the Prolific adapter that came with my Loksound Programmer under Windows 7, they detect it and stop the program, even though the Win 7 drivers load fine. I've used it to connect JMRI to my serial Locobuffer just fine.

         --Randy

 


Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's

 

Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.

  • Member since
    June 2006
  • From: Baltimore, MD
  • 1,726 posts
DecoderPro: USB-to-Serial Adapter Malfunction
Posted by CSX_road_slug on Wednesday, September 25, 2013 6:02 AM

I've been going in circles trying to use DecoderPro with my laptop. Every time I try plugging my NCE PhPro command station into the designated USB port, I get a device driver error Code 10 - "Not enough quota".

For a while I thought it was because I am using a Windows 8 machine, because the vendor of my USB-to-Serial adapter only has drivers for up to Windows 7.  So I brought both my laptop and the adapter over to a friend's house so he could help me troubleshoot it.  He powered-on his command station (a PhPro identical to mine), plugged it into my USB port and COM3 worked perfectly - we even brought up DecoderPro and programmed one of his locos on it.  I brought my stuff back home and tried to use it with my command station.

And I STILL get the same error! 

I did everything exactly as my friend did, in the same order, and it still doesn't work? At least now I can rule out Windows 8 as the culprit. The only thing I can think of now is that my command station itself is frying my COM port device driver.

Any insight would be appreciated...

-Ken in Maryland  (B&O modeler, former CSX modeler)

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