INPA/Cable Help

Kaz26 · 02-13-2018, 04:36 PM

I installed INPA and had it working fine a week ago. I went to install it on another computer and it wouldn't work, and was driving me nuts. So then I tried the cable with the working system to test it and it's not working.

Is there a way that I may have bricked the cable somehow? I opened it up and it looks fine, so I would assume it's firmware related, maybe??

This is driving me nuts, any help will be greatly appreciated.

The cable I'm using is a clear one with green PCB and FT232RQ chip.

Again, I had it working and coded my battery with it. I will post screenshots of other tests I did to prove it if you'd like.

Please help,

Thank you,

Kaz

LMB335IS · 02-13-2018, 04:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaz26

I installed INPA and had it working fine a week ago. I went to install it on another computer and it wouldn't work, and was driving me nuts. So then I tried the cable with the working system to test it and it's not working.

Is there a way that I may have bricked the cable somehow? I opened it up and it looks fine, so I would assume it's firmware related, maybe??

This is driving me nuts, any help will be greatly appreciated.

The cable I'm using is a clear one with green PCB and FT232RQ chip.

Again, I had it working and coded my battery with it. I will post screenshots of other tests I did to prove it if you'd like.

Please help,

Thank you,

Kaz

Check your COM port settings first.

Kaz26 · 02-13-2018, 06:57 PM

Thank you, but I have been through that. I forgot to mention that INPA shows both black and says:

Cable Detected: Yes
Ignition: On

I assume it's some kind of driver error, but I don't know, maybe it's a cable malfunction. Any sure way of finding out if it's the cable? I downloaded Mprog and FT-prog, but I havent figured out how to use them yet. I was wondering if the EEPROM needs to be reprogrammed.

LMB335IS · 02-13-2018, 07:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaz26

Thank you, but I have been through that. I forgot to mention that INPA shows both black and says:

Cable Detected: Yes
Ignition: On

I assume it's some kind of driver error, but I don't know, maybe it's a cable malfunction. Any sure way of finding out if it's the cable? I downloaded Mprog and FT-prog, but I havent figured out how to use them yet. I was wondering if the EEPROM needs to be reprogrammed.

So it shows in your device manager when plugged in to your laptop? Does INPA show a connection error message?

Kaz26 · 02-13-2018, 09:32 PM

Yes, I should have mentioned that. I will post pics below. The error says:

ApiResultSets: Error #100
SYS-0010: INITIALIZATION ERROR
API job error or no such result!
Continue script processing?

I'm running FTDI driver 2.12.28.0. I've tried 4 different drivers to no avail... This is why I'm starting to feel like something was written to the EEPROM somehow. If there is an ept file I could write to it to be sure, that would be great.
-----
Here are the pics:

----------

Here's a pics of some data I checked out when I had it running to register my battery.

---------------

And here's a pic of the board and the FT232RQ chip:

I realize the solder joints aren't great, but they should be decent enough to get the job done. Though, I've considered pulling out the iron and reworking them a bit, I don't think it's necessary.

Kaz26 · 02-13-2018, 09:37 PM

I've tried to simply read fault codes, but it won't do that either. I don't understand why INPA is seeing the cable and appears connected, but won't read it.

arkie6 · 02-13-2018, 11:32 PM

Does your cable have an LED on the OBD end of the cable? If so, what is the LED doing when connected to the laptop and INPA running? Is it flashing?

What sequence do you use to connect the cable to the laptop, to the car, INPA open, car ignition on?

Kaz26 · 02-14-2018, 11:08 AM

The order I used is:
1. Plug cable into computer USB (the same USB I set it up on)
2. Plug OBD side into Car OBD port
3. Turn ignition On
4. Open INPA

The LED turns on when I plug it into the computer, but I haven't paid attention to what it does when I plug it into the car or start INPA for that matter. What is it supposed to do?

Thank you for the replies

Kaz26 · 02-14-2018, 02:07 PM

One thing I noticed is that the pcb has the exact same layout at the white pcb and I believe it has the counterfeit FTDI chip. So, at this point I believe I need to unbrick the chip somehow by loading new firmware onto it.

arkie6 · 02-14-2018, 06:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaz26

The order I used is:

The LED turns on when I plug it into the computer, but I haven't paid attention to what it does when I plug it into the car or start INPA for that matter. What is it supposed to do?

All that I have used mine for so far is to code my new fuel injectors. When I initially plug it into the OBD connector, I get a solid red LED. After a few seconds it goes OFF. Then when I get to the correct screen in INPA to read the fuel injector values, the LED starts flashing rapidly indicating communication from the laptop to the OBD connector.

LMB335IS · 02-14-2018, 08:32 PM

I've never heard of anyone "bricking" a cable. Cheap cables going bad, yes. If you have access to another cable I'd try that and see if you can connect. Personally I'd spend the $45 and either get the Topgear Solutions or bimmergeeks.net cable and call it a day, they're both guaranteed. I've been using the BG cable for a while and it connects to everything with a better data transfer speed.

mecheng77 · 02-15-2018, 11:30 AM

My cable was giving me an error when I connected it to my computer sometimes indicating "unknown device, error installing". It would then not connect to the computer

Other times, it was fine and allowed me to code. I looked at my PCB and it was flawless. It seems to be okay now, last night it caused no issues. Who know what the issue is, stupid temperamental electronics I guess.

Kaz26 · 02-15-2018, 05:24 PM

Just wanted to report back with my findings. I bought a new cable on Amazon with a guaranteed genuine FT232RL chip and everything works great. With that said, I'm done messing and took your advice with spending the $45 for a good cable with genuine FT232RL. I may never know what the issue was with the cheap cable, but I personally believe the problem is in the FT232R chip, which I believe was a counterfeit on the cheap one.

The day and a half a lost trying to troubleshoot it, combined with the frustrations has made me never want to go cheap again. Not worth it.

Thanks again!

Kaz

mattoak · 02-16-2018, 10:39 AM

Seeing as a bunch of you have screenshots from INPA in english, hopefully someone can do me a favor...?

I have INPA installed and working, and some of the menus, especially the initial screens, are in english. But then when I start going into the jobs/modules, the menus turn back to German.

Would someone be willing to share with me the SGDAT and CFGDAT files you're using to have English everywhere? I can't seem to find an English version. I think I might also need your ediabas/ecu .grp files?

Thanks

Edit: Would by best bet just to go to bimmergeeks.net, download their software, uninstall my existing Standard Tools installation and then follow their instructions for installing? I might try that, and save a backup copy of my current installation just in case anything gets broken.

Kaz26 · 02-16-2018, 02:38 PM

SPDaten 60.1 from Bimmergeeks.net:
https://mega.nz/#F!D9RSzQDQ!kfkRj1wG6VHRtemuG7Lv0g

Just go here: https://www.bimmergeeks.net/downloads

They have all sorts of great downloads. Their cables are apparently excellent quality as well!

mattoak · 02-21-2018, 09:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaz26

SPDaten 60.1 from Bimmergeeks.net:
https://mega.nz/#F!D9RSzQDQ!kfkRj1wG6VHRtemuG7Lv0g

Just go here: https://www.bimmergeeks.net/downloads

They have all sorts of great downloads. Their cables are apparently excellent quality as well!

Thanks. The cable I have works with my BMW Standard Tools install, but when I copied over the three folders inside their install that you replace, the cable didn't read. I didn't do a full install from their installation executable, so I'm going to try that next.

Also, what is the difference between 50.2 and 60.1 daten files? Besides 60.1 being more recent? Is 60.1 also in English?

d1saster · 02-21-2018, 06:53 PM

There are reports that using original ftdl driver (or whatever is called) can brick cloned chip. That may be your case.

Kaz26 · 03-07-2018, 07:03 PM

That's exactly what I was going to say. I'm betting that either you or windows updated your cable driver and that soft-bricked your cable. My advice is to go to uninstall your driver, go the FTDI website and download the older executable driver and install it before plugging in your cable. Also before plugging in your cable, disable windows update. You may also need to delete the most recent driver package update because it might reinstall the newest driver automatically. The problem is the FTDI chip being counterfeit. FTDI created drivers that would recognize and disable the counterfeit chips. So you will want an older driver that came out prior to this. I will post a link below. This drove me nuts and that's why I eventually bought the BG cable. It's well worth the $45. I paid the extra $5 for the lifetime warranty so that I won't have to worry about it going out again. However, it's well built and won't likely die as easy as the cheap amazon or ebay cables. Another benefit of the BG cable aside from utilizing the newest drivers is that it's faster than the cheaper cables.

Click here for an auto download of the older FTDI driver exe file (2.08.24)

Just curious, where did you get the cable from?

mattoak · 03-12-2018, 12:01 PM

Cable is a cheap one from Amazon. My currently installed driver works, and I have my cable working with the TopGearSolutions version of INPA, and SP-Daten 50.2.

When I installed the BG version of Standard Tools and INPA, it seems that the cable won't work. Does the BG BMW Standard Tools work on Windows 7 or is it only for 10? Assuming it works for 7, I'm not sure why my cable won't work when I try to use their INPA but it does work with a different version.

I imagine if I really wanted to all I need to do is go through the BG standard tools daten files and copy all of those over to my working version's CFGDAT, SGDAT and I maybe it would all work. But as is, I'm able to use INPA and ECS-Expert which is really all I need. Just annoying it doesn't work with both versions.

Joe@TopGearSolutions · 03-13-2018, 08:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattoak

Cable is a cheap one from Amazon. My currently installed driver works, and I have my cable working with the TopGearSolutions version of INPA, and SP-Daten 50.2.

When I installed the BG version of Standard Tools and INPA, it seems that the cable won't work. Does the BG BMW Standard Tools work on Windows 7 or is it only for 10? Assuming it works for 7, I'm not sure why my cable won't work when I try to use their INPA but it does work with a different version.

I imagine if I really wanted to all I need to do is go through the BG standard tools daten files and copy all of those over to my working version's CFGDAT, SGDAT and I maybe it would all work. But as is, I'm able to use INPA and ECS-Expert which is really all I need. Just annoying it doesn't work with both versions.

Glad our version works for you...

bmw-extreme · 06-21-2021, 03:24 PM

I have a similar problem. My white pcb k+dcan cable is sometimes recognized by winXP and sometimes not. It wasn't like that at first. When I tried to read the rain sensor, inpa crashed and then the cable became unstable. Even when I plug it into a computer that doesn't have ftdi drivers installed, sometimes its recognized and sometimes not. I cannot say its bricked. But its just strange.

sdbmwcoding · 06-21-2021, 04:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bmw-extreme

I have a similar problem. My white pcb k+dcan cable is sometimes recognized by winXP and sometimes not. It wasn't like that at first. When I tried to read the rain sensor, inpa crashed and then the cable became unstable. Even when I plug it into a computer that doesn't have ftdi drivers installed, sometimes its recognized and sometimes not. I cannot say its bricked. But its just strange.

Are you sure latency timer is 1? If it's the default 16 you'll have often connection drops from your software

02-13-2018, 04:36 PM	#1
Kaz26 Second Lieutenant 34 Rep 295 Posts Drives: 2008 335i Alpinweiß Sedan Join Date: Sep 2017 Location: Los Angeles iTrader: (0)	INPA/Cable Help - Had it working, but.... I installed INPA and had it working fine a week ago. I went to install it on another computer and it wouldn't work, and was driving me nuts. So then I tried the cable with the working system to test it and it's not working. Is there a way that I may have bricked the cable somehow? I opened it up and it looks fine, so I would assume it's firmware related, maybe?? This is driving me nuts, any help will be greatly appreciated. The cable I'm using is a clear one with green PCB and FT232RQ chip. Again, I had it working and coded my battery with it. I will post screenshots of other tests I did to prove it if you'd like. Please help, Thank you, Kaz
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02-13-2018, 06:57 PM	#3
Kaz26 Second Lieutenant 34 Rep 295 Posts Drives: 2008 335i Alpinweiß Sedan Join Date: Sep 2017 Location: Los Angeles iTrader: (0)	Thank you, but I have been through that. I forgot to mention that INPA shows both black and says: Cable Detected: Yes Ignition: On I assume it's some kind of driver error, but I don't know, maybe it's a cable malfunction. Any sure way of finding out if it's the cable? I downloaded Mprog and FT-prog, but I havent figured out how to use them yet. I was wondering if the EEPROM needs to be reprogrammed.
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02-13-2018, 09:32 PM	#5
Kaz26 Second Lieutenant 34 Rep 295 Posts Drives: 2008 335i Alpinweiß Sedan Join Date: Sep 2017 Location: Los Angeles iTrader: (0)	Yes, I should have mentioned that. I will post pics below. The error says: ApiResultSets: Error #100 SYS-0010: INITIALIZATION ERROR API job error or no such result! Continue script processing? I'm running FTDI driver 2.12.28.0. I've tried 4 different drivers to no avail... This is why I'm starting to feel like something was written to the EEPROM somehow. If there is an ept file I could write to it to be sure, that would be great. ----- Here are the pics: ---------- Here's a pics of some data I checked out when I had it running to register my battery. --------------- And here's a pic of the board and the FT232RQ chip: I realize the solder joints aren't great, but they should be decent enough to get the job done. Though, I've considered pulling out the iron and reworking them a bit, I don't think it's necessary.
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02-13-2018, 09:37 PM	#6
Kaz26 Second Lieutenant 34 Rep 295 Posts Drives: 2008 335i Alpinweiß Sedan Join Date: Sep 2017 Location: Los Angeles iTrader: (0)	I've tried to simply read fault codes, but it won't do that either. I don't understand why INPA is seeing the cable and appears connected, but won't read it. Last edited by Kaz26; 02-13-2018 at 09:42 PM..
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02-13-2018, 11:32 PM	#7
arkie6 Lieutenant 397 Rep 433 Posts Drives: 2008 BMW 335i sedan Join Date: Aug 2014 Location: Russellville, AR iTrader: (0) Garage List 2008 BMW 335i [0.00]	Does your cable have an LED on the OBD end of the cable? If so, what is the LED doing when connected to the laptop and INPA running? Is it flashing? What sequence do you use to connect the cable to the laptop, to the car, INPA open, car ignition on?
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02-14-2018, 11:08 AM	#8
Kaz26 Second Lieutenant 34 Rep 295 Posts Drives: 2008 335i Alpinweiß Sedan Join Date: Sep 2017 Location: Los Angeles iTrader: (0)	The order I used is: 1. Plug cable into computer USB (the same USB I set it up on) 2. Plug OBD side into Car OBD port 3. Turn ignition On 4. Open INPA The LED turns on when I plug it into the computer, but I haven't paid attention to what it does when I plug it into the car or start INPA for that matter. What is it supposed to do? Thank you for the replies
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02-14-2018, 02:07 PM	#9
Kaz26 Second Lieutenant 34 Rep 295 Posts Drives: 2008 335i Alpinweiß Sedan Join Date: Sep 2017 Location: Los Angeles iTrader: (0)	One thing I noticed is that the pcb has the exact same layout at the white pcb and I believe it has the counterfeit FTDI chip. So, at this point I believe I need to unbrick the chip somehow by loading new firmware onto it.
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02-14-2018, 08:32 PM	#11
LMB335IS Sua Sponte 1297 Rep 2,848 Posts Drives: 2013 LMB 335is Join Date: May 2008 Location: FOB FL iTrader: (21) Garage List 2013 BMW 335is [8.84]	I've never heard of anyone "bricking" a cable. Cheap cables going bad, yes. If you have access to another cable I'd try that and see if you can connect. Personally I'd spend the $45 and either get the Topgear Solutions or bimmergeeks.net cable and call it a day, they're both guaranteed. I've been using the BG cable for a while and it connects to everything with a better data transfer speed. __________________ 335is/DCT-M3 GTS software-M3 drivetrain-M3 GWS-KOMBI-DSC-SZL/MHD/BQ Tuning IG@ClustersandCoding
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02-15-2018, 11:30 AM	#12
mecheng77 Colonel 1006 Rep 2,243 Posts Drives: 2007 328i / 2014 M235i Join Date: Nov 2017 Location: Ontario Canada iTrader: (0) Garage List [0.00] [0.00]	My cable was giving me an error when I connected it to my computer sometimes indicating "unknown device, error installing". It would then not connect to the computer Other times, it was fine and allowed me to code. I looked at my PCB and it was flawless. It seems to be okay now, last night it caused no issues. Who know what the issue is, stupid temperamental electronics I guess.
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02-15-2018, 05:24 PM	#13
Kaz26 Second Lieutenant 34 Rep 295 Posts Drives: 2008 335i Alpinweiß Sedan Join Date: Sep 2017 Location: Los Angeles iTrader: (0)	Just wanted to report back with my findings. I bought a new cable on Amazon with a guaranteed genuine FT232RL chip and everything works great. With that said, I'm done messing and took your advice with spending the $45 for a good cable with genuine FT232RL. I may never know what the issue was with the cheap cable, but I personally believe the problem is in the FT232R chip, which I believe was a counterfeit on the cheap one. The day and a half a lost trying to troubleshoot it, combined with the frustrations has made me never want to go cheap again. Not worth it. Thanks again! Kaz
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02-16-2018, 10:39 AM	#14
mattoak Private First Class 9 Rep 114 Posts Drives: 06 325i Join Date: Oct 2013 Location: Fort Collins, CO iTrader: (0)	Seeing as a bunch of you have screenshots from INPA in english, hopefully someone can do me a favor...? I have INPA installed and working, and some of the menus, especially the initial screens, are in english. But then when I start going into the jobs/modules, the menus turn back to German. Would someone be willing to share with me the SGDAT and CFGDAT files you're using to have English everywhere? I can't seem to find an English version. I think I might also need your ediabas/ecu .grp files? Thanks Edit: Would by best bet just to go to bimmergeeks.net, download their software, uninstall my existing Standard Tools installation and then follow their instructions for installing? I might try that, and save a backup copy of my current installation just in case anything gets broken. Last edited by mattoak; 02-16-2018 at 11:22 AM..
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02-16-2018, 02:38 PM	#15
Kaz26 Second Lieutenant 34 Rep 295 Posts Drives: 2008 335i Alpinweiß Sedan Join Date: Sep 2017 Location: Los Angeles iTrader: (0)	SPDaten 60.1 from Bimmergeeks.net: https://mega.nz/#F!D9RSzQDQ!kfkRj1wG6VHRtemuG7Lv0g Just go here: https://www.bimmergeeks.net/downloads They have all sorts of great downloads. Their cables are apparently excellent quality as well!
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02-21-2018, 06:53 PM	#17
d1saster Captain 60 Rep 675 Posts Drives: F15 N55 & E93 N51 Join Date: Oct 2012 Location: Las Vegas iTrader: (0)	There are reports that using original ftdl driver (or whatever is called) can brick cloned chip. That may be your case.
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03-07-2018, 07:03 PM	#18
Kaz26 Second Lieutenant 34 Rep 295 Posts Drives: 2008 335i Alpinweiß Sedan Join Date: Sep 2017 Location: Los Angeles iTrader: (0)	That's exactly what I was going to say. I'm betting that either you or windows updated your cable driver and that soft-bricked your cable. My advice is to go to uninstall your driver, go the FTDI website and download the older executable driver and install it before plugging in your cable. Also before plugging in your cable, disable windows update. You may also need to delete the most recent driver package update because it might reinstall the newest driver automatically. The problem is the FTDI chip being counterfeit. FTDI created drivers that would recognize and disable the counterfeit chips. So you will want an older driver that came out prior to this. I will post a link below. This drove me nuts and that's why I eventually bought the BG cable. It's well worth the $45. I paid the extra $5 for the lifetime warranty so that I won't have to worry about it going out again. However, it's well built and won't likely die as easy as the cheap amazon or ebay cables. Another benefit of the BG cable aside from utilizing the newest drivers is that it's faster than the cheaper cables. Click here for an auto download of the older FTDI driver exe file (2.08.24) Just curious, where did you get the cable from?
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03-12-2018, 12:01 PM	#19
mattoak Private First Class 9 Rep 114 Posts Drives: 06 325i Join Date: Oct 2013 Location: Fort Collins, CO iTrader: (0)	Cable is a cheap one from Amazon. My currently installed driver works, and I have my cable working with the TopGearSolutions version of INPA, and SP-Daten 50.2. When I installed the BG version of Standard Tools and INPA, it seems that the cable won't work. Does the BG BMW Standard Tools work on Windows 7 or is it only for 10? Assuming it works for 7, I'm not sure why my cable won't work when I try to use their INPA but it does work with a different version. I imagine if I really wanted to all I need to do is go through the BG standard tools daten files and copy all of those over to my working version's CFGDAT, SGDAT and I maybe it would all work. But as is, I'm able to use INPA and ECS-Expert which is really all I need. Just annoying it doesn't work with both versions.
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06-21-2021, 03:24 PM	#21
bmw-extreme Enlisted Member 0 Rep 43 Posts Drives: e90 Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: turkey iTrader: (0)	I have a similar problem. My white pcb k+dcan cable is sometimes recognized by winXP and sometimes not. It wasn't like that at first. When I tried to read the rain sensor, inpa crashed and then the cable became unstable. Even when I plug it into a computer that doesn't have ftdi drivers installed, sometimes its recognized and sometimes not. I cannot say its bricked. But its just strange. Last edited by bmw-extreme; 06-21-2021 at 03:34 PM..
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