396t and USB1 cable not working

[randymir]

I know. . . another thread.

I have been scouring through the forum looking for a solution to my problem, but can't seem to find it.

Problem: I connect my 396t with a USB1 cable to a Win 7 machine. I've updated the PL2303 drivers, but for the life of me I cannot see the scanner. There are no com ports assigned to it, it's as if I never plugged it in.

There are many posts with suggestions of what to do in order to get your scanner connected, but they all assume that when you plug the scanner in it's being recognized.

I know the cable is the correct cable since I've used it on another computer in the past. Could I be missing something?

Maybe I don't have the same cable I used a year or so ago, but I doubt that. Is there a way to verify what I have?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Randy

[rbm]

If you look in your 'Device Manager' do you see the USB1 cable? (With no yellow exclamation mark)
If so, can you 'assign' a COM Port number to it?

FreeSCAN has a great function to check com ports.
BEFORE! you plug in your cable do the following:
.At the top, under 'SCANNER'
.. Select 'CONTROL SCANNER'
...Select 'COM Port Setup'
....Click on the dropdown box for 'Port #' and note any ports there.
..... Then, plug in your USB1 cable and click 'REFRESH'
..... Then click on the dropdown box again.
..... You should see one more port than before. If not, your cable 'may' be bad.

If FreeSCAN does see your cable, once it's connected to your BCD396T you can click on 'TEST' and it will tell you what kind of scanner is connected.
(If your cable AND scanner connector are good. One of my 396T's developed a problem with the connector and needed repairs.)

If you do see your cable show up and it still doesn't work:
Go into 'Device Manager' for the USB1 cable, 'PORT Settings', 'Advanced' and check to see which COM port is assigned. (You may have to change it.)
then read about the Prolific driver issues below.

It's a long story, but Prolific has added some code in their drivers so that only real Prolific devices will work.
That may show 'Error Code 10' in 'Device Manager'.

Review this thread. (If you have a genuine Uniden USB1 cable, you shouldn't have these issues.)
WARNING: New Prolific drivers for Win 7
And this post from another thread.
Before you buy the USB-1 cable

If your problem is that your PC isn't even seeing your USB1 cable, that's another problem.

Rich

[randymir]

Hi rbm.

Thanks for the quick reply. I do not see it at all in the device manager and there is not other device that shows any type of error such as the (!).

That's the problem, I can't see the cable at all.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks again!

Randy

[rbm]

Originally Posted by randymir

Hi rbm.

Thanks for the quick reply. I do not see it at all in the device manager and there is not other device that shows any type of error such as the (!).

That's the problem, I can't see the cable at all.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks again!

Randy

It sounds like your cable OR the USB port is no good.
If you have another USB port, try that.
Do you have another computer you can plug it into? Even if you have to 'impose' on a friend.

By the way, just for future reference, there's a good USB tool called USBDeview for viewing USB devices.
BUT, don't use it if you have an SDR USB dongle plugged in. It'll just hang.
View any installed/connected USB device on your system

[randymir]

I've tried it on another computer running Windows 7 and am having the same problem. Could be the cable.

Randy

[patchman]

I have a similar issue. My computer crashed and I have a new one with Windows 8. I have the Butel ARC 396 and the latest update. Butel advised that the software will work with Win8 but i need to update the for the drivers for the uniden programming cable. Scanner Master website says that the uniden cable will not work with Win8. It wont recognize the scanner or show any port open to connect the scanner.Any ideas? I don't want to program my 396T by hand. Thanks.

[rbm]

Originally Posted by patchman

I have a similar issue. My computer crashed and I have a new one with Windows 8. I have the Butel ARC 396 and the latest update. Butel advised that the software will work with Win8 but i need to update the for the drivers for the uniden programming cable. Scanner Master website says that the uniden cable will not work with Win8. It wont recognize the scanner or show any port open to connect the scanner.Any ideas? I don't want to program my 396T by hand. Thanks.

I don't have any thing running Windows 8 but maybe this will help you.
Windows 8 driver

The latest Prolific Driver for Windows 8 is here:
http://prolificusa.com/pl-2303hx-drivers/

And, one of these may help:
Installing unsigned drivers in Windows 8 64-bit (x64)
http://www.setoreaustralia.com/?p=904
Installing unsigned drivers in Windows 8 [Step-by-Step]
http://pureinfotech.com/2012/09/05/i...-step-by-step/

[ofd8001]

Prolific has a program called "PL2303CheckChipVersion.exe".

This program will, I believe, check your cables to see which chipset it has. To do so it sees which cables are connected and to which com port. This might be a "back door" way of checking which com port the cable is associated with, thus telling you whether your computer is seeing the cable to start with.

Also you may try removing the USB driver that is installed on your computer, and try reinstalling it.

[brightsigns]

Most likely related to code that Prolific put in their latest drivers...they detect "clone" PL-2303 chips and reject them.

We avoid this by supplying FTDI based adapters with our stuff, but many of our customers already own these cloned PL-2303 USB to serial converters.

So...we put together something that installs the latest prolific drivers, but copies over ser2pl.sys/ser2pl64.sys right after the install with a copy from an older version of the drivers. We also reset a registry value so that newly inserted adapters start numbering from COM3.

It's here: http://brightledsigns.com/downloads/plclean.exe

If you do try it, two things:

a) We wrote it to work on XP, Vista, 7, and 8, but only were able to test it thoroughly on 7. Would appreciate reports of it working (or not working)...please mention OS and whether 32 or 64 bit.

b) It does, as mentioned, renumber COM port assignments, so if you have other, working COM ports, be aware they may get renumbered.

Hope it's helpful.

[randymir]

The problem was resolved with a new cable.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions.

Randy