Updating Classic 150 FirmWare

[Vic]

First,  this WILL be obvious to everyone:  I am NOT a computer jock.

On Saturday went to a site with two Classic 150s to update the FW to the latest 6/29/12 rev.  There is NO internet there, so took a 6-month old Tosh Laptop running Win 7 Home Premium.  Had loaded the Manual,  the Win 7 instructions,  and the FW onto it.

Plugged the USB cable into one of the Classics which had been powered down for five minutes.  The cable was plugged into the computer.  When the power was switched on to the Classic,  the LED did light -- it was RED,  and the computer did not recoginze that ANY hardware had been connected,  so none of the driver updating worked.  Did poke around with it for about 90 mins,  but no joy.

The maunal shows the LED as GREEN,  so the RED must be an ERROR indication.

Did not want to swap the cable from the other CC.  And,  YES,  the exact USB port on the Tosh computer had been used to DL pics via a Card Reader in that port,  and that was detected by the computer.

Am in the situation of having internet where there are no Classics,  and NO internet where there are Classics.  Am at the Classic-rich site a couple days a week.

Must be doing wrong things,  or not doing correct things.
The Classics both have the Nov 2011 production code,  which was factory-installed,  and have never been updated.  The computer has NEVER had the Classic driver installed or updated.  The Cl 150 S/Ns are in the 1650 to 1680 range.

Am stumped,  which occurs  fairly often when needing to delve into the inner workings of Win computers.
Any advice/council appreciated.  Thanks,   Vic

[SolarMusher]

Hi Vic
Did you have installed the driver before begining the process?
Erik

[Vic]

Hi Erik,

NO,  have not ever specifically installed any Driver.  Let me go back to read the instructions,  and the manual for the Classic.

Realize that Updating something that is not present might be difficult.
Will read further.  Thanks,  Vic

[boB]

Hi Vic.  Sorry you had trouble there.  Windows 7 can be a real PITB.

You will need to install the drivers on the computer.  Did you see the driver install video ??
I would look at that and also the PDF.

The USB LED color on the Classic being red should be changed in the manual.
We changed the color of the LED.  It just means that the Classic is seeing the USB
power from the PC.

I will let Ryan chime in on the Windows 7 and USB driver thing.  He's done that so much
more than I have recently.  But please check out the video and/or PDF if you haven't already.
It may be, and I seem to remember that windows 7 does not come up like XP did when you
plug a new USB device into it.

Windows 7 is not as good as say, XP for this kind of stuff.  I don't use the Redmond 7 virus, myself.

boB

[SolarMusher]

Hi boB,
Vic's laptop is a MacIntosh if I read it correctly.
I recently installed the driver on PCwin7 and had no problem.
Erik

[boB]

Hi boB,
Vic's laptop is a MacIntosh if I read it correctly.
I recently installed the driver on PCwin7 and had no problem.
Erik

My laptop is an Apple Macbook Pro of the 2009 variety and is running XP on bootcamp.
It works very well for this.  I am assuming this is just a windows 7 annoyance.
It should work though.

boB

[Vic]

Yes,  you are correct boB,  unfortunately,  this is a Windoze 7 HPE computer.

This is a problem for almost no other folks,  perhaps no other Classic FW updaters.  Just do not yet know what am doing wrong.  Still poking around.  The Card Reader that plugs into USB was found by this computer,  and there was a dialog box asking what I wanted to do.  So Win 7 does have some form of this New Hardware Detected functionality seen in other Windoze versions.   Somehow,  there is nothing that has automatically placed a CL Driver anywhere that the system has been looking.

Will study more.  Too hot here to run this computer.  Thanks,  Vic

[Lya72]

Hi Vic,

On the precedents versions of Windows OS, you were obliged to install the driver BEFORE plugging the USB peripheral ; unless this peripheral was marked "Unknown device" by the OS.

To cure that, i discovered the following tool that helps me a lot :

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html

Let's try it.


Other idea : is your OS 64 bits and your chipset Nvidia ??
There was a patch included in Windows7 SP1 to cure USB problems in this context.
Have you installed SP1 ??

Yann

[Halfcrazy]

Vic try this.
Assuming you have downloaded and installed the Midnite firmware updater and have the little Icon as such on your desktop allready. (If not do that first)

Plug the USB cable in with the Classic on.

Go left click the little windows icon on the lower left corner Used to be start) and then go up and Right click "Computer" and left Click "Properties"

Now you should see "Device Manager"in the upper left somewhere left click it.

Now there should be a category labeled Coms and LPT left click the little arrow to expand the stuff in it if it is not already expanded.

Do you see a CDC serial port emuator or something about a boot loader 1.4 (Sorry pre coffee and I am going from memory) it should have a yellow exclamation point by it.

If not try the other Classic If so continue on

Right click on the CDC serial device and select update driver software

Select browse my computer for files

Point it towards the C dive and the MidNite solar folder.

This should take care of it. If not holler and we can see where it may be going foul. Sorry for spacing like I did but I thought it may be easier to follow.

Ryan

[cpm]

Ummm, , ,

My classic 250 is still sitting in a box, but I will doubtlessly need to update it's firmware at some point.

I'm kinda used to fiddling with firmwares on all kinds of embedded stuff in some pretty strange ways.

is there some actual requirement for a driver for the usb device in the classic? Reason I ask, is that I don't use
windows or macos except under duress. have done a modest amount of embedded work over the years,
but I've always used linux.

Am I going to be tearing my hair out, cursing other, and more competent persons than myself?

[Vic]

Hi Yann,

Thanks for the link ...  think that I will try that utility.

Ryan,  thank you very much ... sorry to put you through this.

I did poke around quite a bit with the boot Loader and so on.   The RED LED was a bit concerning,  so did not want to switchh to the other Classic,  if there was something wrong with the cable or similar ...  thinking that I might hurt the other Classic.  Believe that I'll be at the other location later today and will try your instructions.  Thanks.

AND,  cpm,   I did search this site,  in addition to having read every post here over the period of the past year or so.  I have NEVER seen this topic come up in the past ...  so this is a unique situation IMHO.   I do not praticularly care to screw about with computers,  and ALL computers know this,  and  become difficult to use in my hands.   Come,  mostly from the Mac side,  but as a Hammie Radio guy,  in the past,  a Ham with a Mac was a ham without a computer,  so was FORCED to switch.   Seems that all other users have had no problems updating the FW,  so it is me,  and my situation.  Having no internet at the target site  does not help.  And having no Classic at this site makes it difficult to just run out and try something.

Furthermore,  the support form MidNite is the best you will ever find.   The Classic is the best CC that you could find.  Much of the value in this CC is in the inherent capabilities and flexibility that it contains --  these capabilities are being constantly being extended and improved.  The MN team has been doing CCs and solar stuff for decades.  Most other  are just happy to have their product boot up,  and not smoke ... then they ship the product, and forget about updates.

Thanks for the help and ideas  will keep working ...  bottom line is that the current  FW in the Classics is working fine and have found an Asorb time that fully charges but does not overcharge the batts,  so existing FW IS doing the job.   More Later,  Vic

[boB]

Ummm, , ,

My classic 250 is still sitting in a box, but I will doubtlessly need to update it's firmware at some point.

I'm kinda used to fiddling with firmwares on all kinds of embedded stuff in some pretty strange ways.

is there some actual requirement for a driver for the usb device in the classic? Reason I ask, is that I don't use
windows or macos except under duress. have done a modest amount of embedded work over the years,
but I've always used linux.

Am I going to be tearing my hair out, cursing other, and more competent persons than myself?

Actually, I believe that unix and linux both have CDC serial port emulation built in already.
Having said that, there is no application for those OS's yet to send the upload data to the Classic.

There IS an application that has been around for a while that uses Ethernet to update the Classic itself
but it does not work for updating the MNGP Remote yet.  If it did, we would also have that
as an option.   Of course, that one that updates the Classic code itself could work for the Classic Lite
since it does not have an MNGP natively.  I think that Ethernet updating of the Classic version may be
available sooner than later for that.

For now, this week, windows and the  tearing out of hair is necessary.  XP is the Win OS of my choice.
It is just easier I think than the Redmond 7 virus.

boB

[Vic]

Hi boB,  I love your Win 7 moniker!  Worked for a Mac/Apple oriented company eons ago,  and we always considered MS as the Evil Empire.  They  have worked very hard to keep up that spirit  (the Schneider of Software??).

To all, reloaded the MN FW into the laptop,  went to the other site,  and FOLLOWED THE INSTRUCTIONS,  and all went fine.  Cl FW and MNGP FW updaed,  all settings retained --  all good!

Ran the Classic through Bulk and Asorb ... went very quickly as the batts were fully charged.  Had set EA to 14,  and worked like a charm.  Went to Float 30-60 seconds after showing a charge current less than 14 A.

Thank you all very much for the hand-holding.   Part of the previous problem was that I could not find the MN folder.  Did download that file again,  and this time,  found two of them ... a navigation problem on my part.  Am unaccustomed to using a laptop,  and really HATE the touch pad,  and tha fact that when your hands are near the pad,  like for clicking on something,  you never know what will be selected, or what planet you will wind up on -- far,  far to sensitive to proximity.  There must be an adjustment for the sensitivity.

Thanks again,  Vic

[dgd]

I had problem with Asus G74 and W7 pro. Downloaded firmware then went through procedure connecting power off then on with GUI
waiting for Classic 150 to start. When it did all I got was CRC error, file damaged. After using USB port analyser the USB  and ort was up
and working and the Asus and Classic could see each other BUT no data would move over the serial link.
AFter a while I used another laptop, Acer, with W7 64bit pro. Same result. Another Classic 150, same again.
Had to borrow an HP laptop with Vista 32bit OS and the firmware upload went first time.
I have been reading about W7 64bit problems with USB ports and its a whole research topic.

[boB]

I had problem with Asus G74 and W7 pro. Downloaded firmware then went through procedure connecting power off then on with GUI
waiting for Classic 150 to start. When it did all I got was CRC error, file damaged. After using USB port analyser the USB  and ort was up
and working and the Asus and Classic could see each other BUT no data would move over the serial link.
AFter a while I used another laptop, Acer, with W7 64bit pro. Same result. Another Classic 150, same again.
Had to borrow an HP laptop with Vista 32bit OS and the firmware upload went first time.
I have been reading about W7 64bit problems with USB ports and its a whole research topic.

Yeah, I don't know what  the deal is with Windoze 7.  XP and Vista appear to work pretty well for updating.
And W7 has so many different versions...   Pro, Home, 32, 64, Enterprise and all the combinations of those.
We at least got W7 to work here at MidNite, but then out in the field, it's all a crap shoot with W7.
I think I will just stick with my good old XP Pro for development.

I wish I could figure out exactly what is happening, but I can't find anyone that knows anything about USB drivers
for windows.  I think they have all died.

boB

PS, Vic, I'm glad you like the W7 rename.  Saw that on a Usenet group I think and it seems fitting.