BitScope Designs USB BitScope Installation Guide sales@bitscope.com USB BitScope Installation Guide Revision 1.01, 20 September 2004. 2004 Metachip Pty. Ltd. T/A BitScope Designs. Suite G03 / 28 Chandos Street., St. Leonards NSW 2065 AUSTRALIA Phone: +61 2 9436 2955 Fax: +61 2 9436 3764 Email: sales@bitscope.com Web: www.bitscope.com 1 of 10
BitScope Designs USB BitScope Installation Guide sales@bitscope.com 1 Introduction The USB BitScopes (models BS220U, BS300U, BS50U and BS310U) require a USB Driver to be installed on your PC. This driver is included you your CD-ROM and is also available directly from the USB driver vendor FTDI (http://www.ftdichip.com/). When you first connect your USB BitScope to your Windows PC, the system will report that it "found new hardware" and will ask you to install the necessary driver. This should be a simple as inserting the BitScope CD-ROM and following the prompts. If you have ever installed new USB devices before this should be familiar to you but if it's not or if you run into problems this guide is for you. If you're using Linux instead of Windows, using your USB BitScope is easy because the kernel since 2.4.24 and all 2.6 kernels have support for the FTDI chips as standard. Most popular Linux distributions include compiled modules for all supported devices so using BitScope is usually as simple as selecting the right USB device path (eg /dev/ttyusb0 instead of COM1) in the DSO SETUP when you run it for the first time. The remainder of the document is intended for Windows users. 2 Installation When you first plug in your USB BitScope a box like this should appear: It may look a little different to this (it depends on which edition of Windows you are running) but in principle it should be the same. Click Next. 2 of 10
and Next again to select the default choice Search for the best driver for your device. At this point choose CD-ROM or Specify a location and browse to the folder in which the USB driver is located. In example above we've shown the FTDI folder as it appears on your CD-ROM but if you downloaded the driver from FTDI yourself you should browse to the folder where you unpacked the driver archive. Click Next and Windows will install the driver: 3 of 10
When the installation completes you should see this dialog: Click Finish and you're ready to use BitScope. 3 COM Port Assignment After driver installation your USB BitScope will appear on the system as a "Virtual COM Port". By default the DSO (on your CD-ROM) is preconfigured to connect with BitScope via this port which is assigned to COM4 or COM5 However if your COM port setup is different (perhaps you already have other USB serial devices) Windows may assign the port used by BitScope elsewhere. In this case you may need to select the port via the DSO setup dialog box when you run the DSO for the first time. To do this simply click the SETUP button as shown here when you run the DSO. This will open the DSO's SETUP dialog box: 4 of 10
Where you can select the COM port assigned during the driver installation. Note that the drop down list shows COM1 through COM8 but you can simply click on the IP Address or Port box and type in any COM port (eg, COM9). 3 Which COM Port? To find out which COM port is assigned use Windows' Device Manager. Depending on your edition of Windows and selected theme the means by which you open the Device Manager varies. In "Windows Classic" (ie, 98, ME, NT, 2000 etc) simply right click on My Computer on your desktop and select Properties. In Windows XP do the same thing on My Computer in the Start Menu. In either case make sure your BitScope is plugged into your PC when you do this and click Device Manager. 5 of 10
Here you should see the list of all devices in your system including a new USB Serial Port (in this example on WinXP it has been assigned to COM4). This is the COM port number you should select in the DSO setup if it's not already selected. 6 of 10
4 COM Port Properties and Driver Revision If you use the driver that came on your CD-ROM you can skip this section. To view the COM port properties, right click the device and select Properties (here shown for Win98 but it's similar in XP): You should not need to change anything here but you can check the driver version (which should be 1.09.05 or later under Windows 98 and ME or 1.0.2154.0 or later under Windows NT, 200x and XP). 7 of 10
5 Changing COM Port Assignment Under Windows NT, 200x and XP you can change the COM port assignment via the device properties. We do not recommend doing this unless you really need to (eg, to resolve a conflict with another application or drivers). With the USB Serial Port Properties dialog open click Advanced: This opens the advanced properties dialog where you can reassign the COM port number used by the device: When you've finished be sure to reboot your PC even if Windows does not say you need to do so. This ensures that the changes take effect correctly. Note: while under Windows 98 and ME it is possible to select the Advanced properties and do the same thing, the device will often not work on the new COM port (due to limitations in these older versions of Windows). We therefore do not recommend you change the assigned COM port under these versions of Windows. 8 of 10
6 Uninstalling USB Drivers If you no longer want the driver installed or if you need to uninstall it so you can reinstall it again to fix device conflict issues on your particular PC this is how you do it; via Windows Control Panels select Add/Remove Programs to open the following dialog: Select FTDI USB-to-Serial Converter Drivers and click the Add/Remove button (shown here for Windows 98 et al but it looks similar under Windows XP). When the driver is removed you will no longer be able to communicate with your BitScope until you again install the USB drivers. 6 Troubleshooting USB USB is designed to be "plug and play". However anyone who has used a few USB devices with (particularly older versions of) Windows may have experienced problems, driver conflicts and similar issues. We know of no general problems with USB BitScopes when installed as described in this guide and used with any current version of Windows. However, you may experience problems with older PC hardware or if you have installed other USB/Serial devices in the past and it is entire possible that Windows Service Packs issued by Microsoft may interfere with an existing USB installation in future. The following check list is designed to help solve the most likely problems: 1. 2. The installed USB driver must be 1.0.2151.0 (WinXP, NT, 2k) or 1.09.05 (Win98, ME) or later revisions. There are known problems with the older FTDI drivers so don't use them. Some versions of XP have pre-installed USB drivers for FTDI chips but they are NOT compatible with the FTDI chip in BitScope. Similarly if you have used other USB/Serial devices with FTDI chips in them other incompatible drivers may already be installed on your PC. If when you first plug BitScope into your PC it does not say it's found a new device and ask you to install the driver (see section 2) you must find the driver already on your PC that 9 of 10
3. 4. 5. 6. decided it can talk to BitScope and remove it (see section 6). You can then install the driver supplied on the CD-ROM (which should work for other FTDI serial devices on your PC). There may be incompatibilities with older PC USB ports. To check this try installing the drivers and running the software with BitScope connected to a different type of PC (ie, one that is not identical to the first and which is preferrably a fairly new one). Note: BitScope should work with either USB 1.1 or USB 2.0 ports just fine. Sometimes cabling can be a problem. Have you tried using BitScope with a different USB cable (one that you know works with other USB devices)? If using BitScope connected via a USB hub and you're having trouble, try connecting BitScope directly to the USB port on your PC instead. In the case of BS50U (BitScope Pocket Analyzer) do you have external power connected? If not, the problem may be that your USB port or USB hub is not providing sufficient power for BitScope (it needs 300 ma). Try connecting a 9V power adaptor for BS50U or use a powered USB hub capable of supplying at least 300mA of current. If you are still having problems email tech support at: support@bitscope.com. 10 of 10