VCI-100, I went McGyver on it, now wont start.

[arrekull]

Hi

Today I'm a very, very sad person, so please bear with me.

As the title tells you I did something stupid. I just got a new VCI-100 here in Europe at quite a good price. It's a silver one with old firmware, and it was working fine when I got it. I figured it'd be cheaper to buy it here and get the firmware upgrade kit + a black overlay from DJTT separately.

Upgrade kit arrived, but to my great disappointment there wasn't a serial cable to be found anywhere in the region where I live (southern Portugal). Of course I could have ordered one online, but I couldn;t find any Portuguese distributers and to pay international shipping for a €2 cable didn't seem to make much sense (read: cheap idiot who got what he had coming).


So here's the failing strategy:

1. Downloaded all the necessary software/firmware from DJTT.
   
2. Opened the VCI-100 and connected the firmware upgrade kit.
   
3. Are you ready? Opened my PC and lifted out my main board to access the serial port(!!!)
   
4. Connected the firmware upgrade serial connector directly to the main board serial connector without use of a cable.
   
5. Launched the Firmware upgrade software, started the upgrade process (I'm not 100% whether or not I remembered to switch the crystal freq to 24).
   
6. Spark, crash - death
   
7. PC dies instantly and is henceforth completely useless. Starts uo only to shut down after less than a minute. Then requires a bit of rest for a few minutes before it's willing to power up again. (checked all fans for cooling, seem to operating normally)
   
8. VCI-100 won't start. Jog wheels do light up with red diods when pressed.

Add to the mix a bit of sobbing, cursing and punching walls.

PC was old, can live with losing it. But I'm devastated about the VCI. I had hoped the reason that it doesn't start up because the firmware upgrade process was interrupted prematurely.

However. I have now received a serial cable and performed the process again, following the youtube instruction video step by step, using another PC. The upgrade process starts without any error messages, but after a few seconds the Renesas software just exits without any warnings. Is this normal? Am I supposed to receive some kind of confirmation message if the firmware upgrade was successful?

The VCI-100 still won't start up, and I no longer get the red diods lit up when I press the jog wheels.

What do you forum readers think, is this a lost cause? Did I just lose around €500 (plus a dead PC) or is there still hope?

Thank you for a t least sharing my faith through this story.

arrekull

Please forgive any grammar or spelling errors, as English is not my first language.

[allystrachan]

im thinking the vci might still work because i have just failed to do the upgrade and renesas says its complete then shuts down with a windows error and now my vci has no power either. i searched and theres a few threads on this but im still unable to get mines working.

only problem you seem to have thats different form my situation is that you opened up a computer and fried it, whereas i just used a cable! haha!

[photojojo]

Have you tried changing the delay using the FDTAdvancedSetup.exe file?

[photojojo]

Also I had a problem when I did mine of the software crashing and switching to a different cable seemed to do the trick.

[arrekull]

Also I had a problem when I did mine of the software crashing and switching to a different cable seemed to do the trick.

Were you using a USB -> Serial cable before?

[photojojo]

Were you using a USB -> Serial cable before?

No I was using a serial to serial cable, but it wasn't the right kind.

[arrekull]

So, after re-connecting my VCI-100 to a Windows 7 PC using the serial-serial cable and following the DJTT step by step youtube guide for firmware upgrade, my controller is now 100% functional with the 1.4 firmware.

Conclusion: if the fw-upgrade gets interrupted midway, the VCI-100 wont work until a full fw-flash has been carried out.

[LiveFastStephen]

Awesome you got it working, in which case it wouldn't be adding insult to injury to correct the Title from McGyver, he'd make something cooler out of it, i'd say you went more McHannibal Lector. - all in good fun