Troubleshooting

Having trouble getting everything you can out of our products? We want to help! Below are some first steps for troubleshooting. If you can't find what you need here, please feel free to contact us. Provide as much detail as possible and we will work with you to resolve your issues.

OBD-II Diagnostic Scanner

The program doesn't work:

Make sure you follow the software installation instructions. Most installation problems stem from DCOM98 and or MDAC not installing correctly. While we make every attempt to provide the most recent drivers, both of these may be downloaded from www.microsoft.com and installed separately.

I can’t see the whole program:

The program window is sized to fit on a screen with 800x600 resolution or higher. Also, the font type must be set to ‘Small Fonts’. To check your machine, on the start menu, click ‘Settings - Control Panel - Display'. On the ‘Settings’ tab the screen size should be set to 800x600 or higher. Also on the ‘Settings’ tab, click the ‘Advanced’ button to review the font size. It should not be set to large. If the bottom of the screen cut off, you may need to auto-hide the tool bar.

The OBD-II Diagnostic Scanner doesn't see my car:

Make sure your car ignition is turned on and the engine is running. The scan tool can't initialize until the car is on and running. Next, be sure at least one of the LEDs illuminates to verify power is getting to the scan tool. If that doesn't work then make sure your car is OBD-II compatible. Be sure to verify the connector pin out in the FAQ section.

The Computer won’t talk to the Scan Tool:

Ensure that the correct Com port is selected by clicking on the ‘Utilities – Com’ menu in the program and selecting the correct Com port. When Com pairs 1 and 3 or 2 and 4 are used, problems can arise. Com 1 and Com 3 use the same interrupt as do Com 2 and Com 4. You will know you have selected the correct Com port when the CTS indicator is red when the scan tool is disconnected from the PC and green when the scan tool is connected to the vehicle and PC.

The program keeps restarting:

This usually happens with one of the ISO protocols. What happens is the CTS line is pulsed from high to low and back when the scan tool sends its 'keep alive message' to the vehicle and your PC doesn't see the back part because it happens too fast. This is easily fixed in the 'Utility - Scanner Data' tab. Simply increase the RS-232 Delay value. The initial value (10.6mSec) works well with 600MHz and faster machines. If you are having problems, try increasing the value to 50mSec and be sure the resetting problem goes away, then decrease the value 5mSec at a time until the problem comes back. To set the final value, increase the point where it comes back by 5 mSec.

If you are using a USB to Serial Port adapter and have communication problems:

Make sure you set the driver to emulate an available Com port (preferably Com 1 - Com 4).
Make sure you select the correct Com port in the program under the Tools - Com Port menu.
If the CTS indicator in the top right corner is always on, you have an adapter problem or the incorrect Com port is selected.
On the Tools - Timing menu, increase 'System Command Delay' and 'Com Fail Hold Time' to 0.5 seconds.
On the Utilities - Scanner Data window, increase the '0x14 RS-232 Delay Time' to 15mSec.
We highly recommend Belkin, IO Gear, ATEN, or Prolific USB to Serial adapters. We offer a USB to RS-232 adapter that will function with our scan tool. We can not support problems with USB adapters not purchased from Bowser Electronics.