K3: Windows 7 and USB/serial redux

[John K3TN]

I built a new Windows 7 64 bit Pro PC, got all my ham software up and running and for a brief period of time life was good. A bad RAM module brought that to a crashing (literally) end. Trying to recover from that I've been having a series of problems that keep pointing to what looks like the well known USB/serial port driver kind of problem.

So, it looks like I'm going to do a complete clean re-install of Windows and start again. When I bought the K3 in Jan 2010 I bought the generic USB/serial interface from Elecraft. I had loaded the drivers pointed to from the Elecraft site - is that the safe thing to use? Somewhere else I saw some pointing to other drivers.

I'm not going to even try to install any of these drivers until I'm 100% sure the Windows 7 setup is 100% stable, but at some point I'm going to want to update the K3 firmware...

73 John K3TN

[Bob Naumann W5OV]

John (and everyone else) please **STOP** with the un-installing and
re-installing.

That ended as a solution to problems long before Windows 98 came out.
Re-installing is generally a colossal waste of time and rarely solves
anything.

What to do instead?

Look in control panel and see what Windows tells you that your USB adapter
is.

If you purchased it from Elecraft, it will either be a Prolific unit or an
FTDI unit.

If it is Prolific, go here and download the correct driver:

http://www.prolific.com.tw/eng/downloads.asp?ID=31

If it is an FTDI, go here and download the correct driver:

http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm

Disconnect your USB cable from the computer, install the correct driver and
after the driver installs, then plug in the cable. After you plug in the
cable, go back into Control Panel and see what com port # Windows has
assigned to your adapter. Set your software to match that com port number.

73,

Bob W5OV




-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email]
[mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of John K3TN
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 5:50 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [Elecraft] K3: Windows 7 and USB/serial redux


I built a new Windows 7 64 bit Pro PC, got all my ham software up and
running
and for a brief period of time life was good. A bad RAM module brought that
to a crashing (literally) end. Trying to recover from that I've been having
a series of problems that keep pointing to what looks like the well known
USB/serial port driver kind of problem.

So, it looks like I'm going to do a complete clean re-install of Windows and
start again. When I bought the K3 in Jan 2010 I bought the generic
USB/serial interface from Elecraft. I had loaded the drivers pointed to from
the Elecraft site - is that the safe thing to use? Somewhere else I saw some
pointing to other drivers.

I'm not going to even try to install any of these drivers until I'm 100%
sure the Windows 7 setup is 100% stable, but at some point I'm going to want
to update the K3 firmware...

73 John K3TN
--
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[Mike Reublin]

Win 7 may find the drivers on it's own. I'd try that first. Elecraft changed the KUSB
they sell from a Prolific to a FTDI chipset circa July 2010. Both drivers are on the
site, so if you download them, it's important to know which cable you have.

http://www.elecraft.com/K3/k3_software.htm#kusb

73, Mike NF4L

On 2/4/2011 6:49 AM, John K3TN wrote:

> I built a new Windows 7 64 bit Pro PC, got all my ham software up and running
> and for a brief period of time life was good. A bad RAM module brought that
> to a crashing (literally) end. Trying to recover from that I've been having
> a series of problems that keep pointing to what looks like the well known
> USB/serial port driver kind of problem.
>
> So, it looks like I'm going to do a complete clean re-install of Windows and
> start again. When I bought the K3 in Jan 2010 I bought the generic
> USB/serial interface from Elecraft. I had loaded the drivers pointed to from
> the Elecraft site - is that the safe thing to use? Somewhere else I saw some
> pointing to other drivers.
>
> I'm not going to even try to install any of these drivers until I'm 100%
> sure the Windows 7 setup is 100% stable, but at some point I'm going to want
> to update the K3 firmware...
>
> 73 John K3TN

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[ac0h]

Ditto what Bob says below.

Anything to do with windows attached devices starts and ends in windows
device manager. Very rarely do we in the IT field have to re-install
windows these days and we try to avoid it all costs. We can lose a half
day production from a machine re-installing windows, bring it up
to current security patch level, re-install of applications and
devices, restoration of user data. Multiply that times three for a
home user just because they don't have the tools we do.

Whenever you install something USB. I don't care what it is, always,
always install the driver first. If you suspect a driver issue with a
device like the KUSB go to device manager, right click on the device and
un-install it, Disconnect the device, refresh the list by searching for
new hardware, re-install the driver, either off the hard drive or CD,
and plug in the device when asked to by the driver install or when the
install is complete.

I was doing IT when plug and pray first reared it's ugly head. I've
never been able to make myself trust it. The drivers in any version of
windows for the popular devices may be weeks, months, or in some cases
years out of date. Don't ever expect a fresh install of windows to have
the drivers you need for your device.


On Fri, 4 Feb 2011 06:16:37 -0600
"Bob Naumann" <[hidden email]> wrote:

> John (and everyone else) please **STOP** with the un-installing and
> re-installing.
>
> That ended as a solution to problems long before Windows 98 came out.
> Re-installing is generally a colossal waste of time and rarely solves
> anything.
>
> What to do instead?
>
> Look in control panel and see what Windows tells you that your USB
> adapter is.
>
> If you purchased it from Elecraft, it will either be a Prolific unit
> or an FTDI unit.
>
> If it is Prolific, go here and download the correct driver:
>
> http://www.prolific.com.tw/eng/downloads.asp?ID=31
>
> If it is an FTDI, go here and download the correct driver:
>
> http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm
>
> Disconnect your USB cable from the computer, install the correct
> driver and after the driver installs, then plug in the cable. After
> you plug in the cable, go back into Control Panel and see what com
> port # Windows has assigned to your adapter. Set your software to
> match that com port number.
>
> 73,
>
> Bob W5OV

--
R. Kevin Stover
AC0H
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[Rich]

Several years ago I purchased the KeySpan USB/Serial adapter. I have had absolutely no problem with it on WinXP, WinVista and Win7 (both 32&64 bit).  If you are using a laptop or change equipment around it is a must.  The driver can be setup so that the individual converter will always have the same serial port, regardless of which usb jack you plug it into. How many times have you spent an hour or so trying to figure out what is wrong when al it was is you put the plug into a different jack?  I now have two of these and one is set up as com port 3 and the other as 4. Has made my life much simpler.

KeySpan model USA 19 HS under $30 on the web.

As they said LOAD the driver first for your operating system. You will need to go to KeySpan to get it if you get an older version of SW.  DO NOT let windows try and find it or allow windows update to "update" it. I did once and it quit working untill I rolled it back.