Ron, Peter and you were correct! I went back and rechecked that the
other radio on one of the other ports of the PCI card was still working
and now it wasn't working. I found a second, unused USB-to-serial
adapter in my garage and installed it. The update went forward
flawlessly in 315 seconds. I used 57.6 K speed and hardware flow
control, but I don't know if that was essential.
I have to conclude that when I originally started the update, the serial
port was not completely failed and there were some data flowing. When I
began switching serial ports, I must have damaged ports by hot plugging,
as Peter suggested. I will go back and recheck everything, but it looks
like that PC card will have to be replaced and, maybe, that other
USB-to-serial adapter that I first tried.
Thanks to all for your help. All seems to be working fine now.
73, Joe
K2XX
Ron Castro wrote:
> This still sounds like a COM port problem in the computer. I have
> been using a USB to serial port converter for a couple of years and it
> has worked perfectly on the my Orion II, a friend's 'original' v. 1x
> Orion, my old TS-870, plus numerous other devices.
>
> FWIW, I found that all USB-to-serial converters are based on two
> different chips...one seems to work all the time and the other is
> flakey, but I don't know which one is which! What I do know is that
> the one made by "Cables To Go" works for me every time, so I bought
> four of them and keep one everywhere I think I might need one.
>
> BTW, I use this on a Sony P-4 laptop with XP Pro.
>
> Ron N6IE
> www.N6IE.com
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Joe Giacobello" <k2xx@swva.net>
> To: <tentec@contesting.com>
> Cc: <jmiller1706@cfl.rr.com>
> Sent: Monday, March 02, 2009 6:40 AM
> Subject: Re: [TenTec] FW Update Problem w/O2
>
>
>> Jim and Billy, thanks for your inputs, but I'm continuing to have
>> both an exasperating and mysterious series of problems with the FW
>> installation.
>>
>> Apparently, those messages that I was receiving on the Orion screen
>> were indicative of the FW code being loaded albeit at a very slow
>> pace. I went back and tried it again several times and on some
>> occasions the transfer would stop at an early line and the update
>> software would close. The furthest I got before the transfer stopped
>> was program flash 266. The speed seemed to be erratic, but it was
>> generally quite slow. It made little difference whether I used
>> hardware flow control or none and 57.6K speed or slower. Even though
>> I usually received the error message that there was no communication
>> between update software and the Orion, the Orion display showed
>>
>> I am currently using a multi-serial port PCI card for serial ports.
>> It has worked flawlessly for several years with a number of different
>> applications. I tried Jim's suggestion of using a USB-to-serial
>> adapter and his port settings, but there appeared to be nothing
>> happening based on no info being displayed on the Orion screen. I
>> went back to the PCI serial port and now, unlike my earlier
>> experiences, saw no info displayed on the screen that indicated data
>> transfer (or anything else for that matter). (So Jim's remedy may
>> have been working, but I couldn't tell.)
>>
>> Finally, I ran a serial port analyzer program and it showed that
>> communication between the port and the Orion was established
>> practically instantaneously, but then the data transfer slowed to a
>> snail's pace when the update software started transferring code.
>> (This is when the error message about loss of communication is
>> generated. Apparently, it has slowed, but it has not stopped.) One
>> line of code was being transferred every 6-7 seconds. I decided to
>> allow the transfer to continue overnight and by this morning about
>> half the code had been loaded and there are still no messages on the
>> orion screen.
>>
>> I haven't the vaguest idea why I'm having this problem. It seems
>> that most users have had no problems, although a small minority have
>> had problems similar to mine. I never had any problems loading Orion
>> I FW with the same setup. Really mysterious.
>>
>> 73, Joe
>> K2XX
>>
>>
>>
>> /I had the same problem, others have mentioned it also. I finally
>> had to buy
>> a cheap USB to serial converter and use it. I suspect that something
>> in the
>> latest indows version doesn't like the older serial card I was using. I
>> think some folks think it may be a Windows XP or Vista problem. But
>> also be
>> sure you have your serial port set to 57600 bps, no parity, hardware
>> flow
>> control. You do this in the Windows Device Manager, under COM and LPT
>> ports.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: tentec-bounces@contesting.com
>> [mailto:tentec-bounces@contesting.com]
>> On Behalf Of Joe Giacobello
>> Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2009 5:35 PM
>> To: tentec@contesting.com
>> Subject: [TenTec] FW Update Problem w/O2
>>
>> I have just been trying to install FW 2.041XL and have major problems.
>> After starting the update, I first get an error message indicating that
>> there's no communication with the radio. If I repeat the update one or
>> two more times, I finally get a message on the Orion screen that says
>> "Erase Flash" which then switches to "Program Flash 1." The number in
>> that message continuously increments every 10 seconds or so, but nothing
>> else happens. I can stop the numbers from incrementing by just shutting
>> down the update software. So there must be some communication between
>> the software and the O2.
>>
>> I've tried both master resets and RAM clears w/o any effect, and I also
>> re-downloaded the FW file. I can't even re-install the original FW.
>> Never had problems updating the original Orion.
>>
>> Anyone seen anything similar or have any thoughts on what might be
>> going on?/
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> TenTec mailing list
>> TenTec@contesting.com
>> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/tentec
>>
>
>
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