bare minimum ram required for PL

I

INEEDAGN

Seen Your Member
Joined
Feb 28, 2003
The laptop I am using to type this runs powerlogger fine. However, the laptop i've had forever dedicated to tuning my car looks to be on the ragged edge minimum for running my new powerlogger. Its a pentium II 128 mb of ram and 1.8 gig of unused hard drive. I think it was originally equipped with win 95 but is now running win98. It does have a usb port. I can make more hard drive space but the ram is under your 192 mb requirement posted on the full throttle forums. Ram is probably cheap as hell for this dinosaur, but it may not have more slot room. Also didn't see a listed "speed" for the processor when browsing the properties on my machine.

I have 3 working batteries for "ol' faithful" and it's useless for anything but my car. SO i'd really like to set it up to run powerlogger even if I have to add ram. But can it be run on less ram?
 
it might work ok, but it will be on the ragged edge.

You need to be on Win98SE for the USB to work.

I got a Thinkpad T41 from BoostedPimp on here to use in the car, I think I paid him 100.00 for it and it rocks for
stuff like this. You might think about updating to a newer dinosaur......

Bob
 
Pimp always has a few of them it seems. I have bought several from him and they have been excellent for there use..
 
I guess I will try to tinker with it this week, I have to find the cd rom drive that slides in place of the floppy drive and see if I can locate the ram slots. If I have to "buy" a different computer, then I will just use the one I'm typing on right now (which was pieced together). When I bought the powerlogger I figured there was no chance it would run on the armada, but then got curious and wondered what if? I have connections in the IT world so a newer dinosaur may only be a "dig through the pile" away. But this one already has all my turbolink and directscan files loaded on it and enough battery life to drive from here to the next TFW get together. And I've got a serious cash pile built up in hoyle friday night poker.....

Thanks for the quick response!
 
Ok tonight I went on a ram quest. Both my good one and my "parts" one (that still works sorta) had both slots full of 64mb. I went to the first pile of old laptops I know of and found a single 128 that works, so that bumped it to the recommended minimum 192. the laptop does support up to 256, and theres another 128 in the pile but it's in a laptop that still works and has to be dissected to retrieve it. I will hold off, but more ram is available if need be. Also verified that it IS win98 SE and the processor speed is 333, so I think she'll be good to go if I just find that damn cd-rom drive.

I have a question about cache memory. The specific model number search on the compaq site says my parts laptop has a slower processor but has a 512mb L2 cache memory and my good one has a 256mb L2 "integrated" cache memory. Did a wikipedia search for it and the info is over my head. All the faster versions of this laptop are listed under the 256 integrated L2 and the slowest ones are 512 L2. Does this mean a damn thing? Can it be swapped similar to ram? Parts laptop is also a 6gb hard drive with win98se on it so that may find its way into the good one in the future. This sounds like a lot of work for an old POS but it's been faithful to me for 8 or 9 years and I have 3 damn good li-ion batteries, so I think I will milk it as long as it will boot up and function. Good batteries seem to be the rare item when digging through the bone pile. Found several faster computers that work but none have good batteries.
 
what model computer?

You are going to have to just try it and see what happens.

B
 
pc100 is cheaper and more plentiful on the ebay so if its not an issue I may just be a big spender and go all out for $8 shipped...
 
....and while I got you here, do you happen to know if its ok to supply power/ground to 2 5v sensors using the tps wires? I've had the turbolink boost harness for years to run the 3 bar and want to add a 5v pressure transducer for fuel pressure. Figured I'd hack up the boost harness to power both and then I just have to get the signal wires in the car (probably by modifying the unused wastegate solenoid wiring as others have done).
 
ugh what a mess. FINALLY found the cd drive after tearing through the house twice, sit down to load up the powerlogger and I'll be god damned if the laptop didn't quit right then and there. No video. Spent the whole night swapping parts from my parts laptop until finally swapping the whole motherboard got it working again. I should have knocked on wood when bragging it up before. First attempt at getting it to sync with the car failed, I'm too tired to go after it tonight. I forget the error it gave me. I know on this computer I had to go through the driver thing twice like it said in the instructions, this time it went through once and recommended a restart, which I did, now it don't work and manually selecting the drivers leads it to tell me something along the lines of "you already loaded that driver, dumbass". I guess the USB is working, it auto popped up the driver thing upon first plugin.

Tomorrow is a new (and hopefully better) day. Few more of these and I will tell the wife she has to do without the laptop when the buick leaves town.
 
ok so heres where i am. plug in the modern laptop and it works perfect, go to the win 98 laptop and when i hit the monitor button it gives me the error message: Access violation at address 0052EC40 in module 'PLC.EXE'. Read of address FFFFFFFF

Uninstalled and reinstalled everything that looks like a driver, usb port works with a mouse and a memory stick. Anything special with win98se? I found some 256mb ram chips that fit for like $7 each and I think we are going to add that and put win XP on the spare hard drive and see if it can handle xp. But this is a curious situation, as you have stated that people are running it on 98.
 
I'm not sure how far you want to go down this road.....

check the device manager and see if you are getting a COM port when the PL is plugged in.

try an older version of PLC.

Bob
 
"I" have absolutely nothing better to do, and sort of enjoy the challenge (I get less stupid with every project).

If "you" have more productive roads to travel down, I promise not to hold it against you :).
 
Yes I get a com port that pops up when I connect to the PL. However it has a little exclamation point next to it and when I check it out, it says that the driver file is missing, corrupt or incorrect. Searching for new ones takes me back to the same one thats installed.

going from 1.3.30 to 1.3.32 gets rid of the error message but I still get no data even though it says its connected. Going to try 1.3.25 and maybe a few others.
 
the latest drivers are supposed to work all the way back to the dawn of time....... the drivers are from FTDI, they make the interface chip.

anyway. try the drivers in the attached moldy old file....
 

Attachments

  • PowerLoggerfrom 2007.zip
    2.5 MB · Views: 58
Ok short version: GOT IT TO WORK!

Long version: deleted everything powerlogger from the laptop. added the folder you just gave me in this thread in its place. The folder on the cd just has 2 drivers and the only folders were amd64 and i386. The folder you gave me has subfolders for all the windows variants (you probably knew all that already). used the drivers from the win98 folder. restarted computer with pl cable attached. Said it couldnt find a specific file that I found in the win98 folder so I pointed it there. all was good with the connection now, little exclamation point goes away. However when I hit connect, it still gave me no data whatsoever. replaced the pl.exe file in the download above with the one off the cd ( I think its 1.3.3). Still no work. replaced it with 1.3.32 that I got off the fullthrottle forums. Works great! Tried my luck with almost every other version out of that thread on the fullthrottle site (8 in all) and no other one works EXCEPT 1.3.32. I tried 1.3.12-17 and then 1.3.25 and 26 in case you are trying to track the bug down. My hunch is that the newest flash of the PL card is not compatible with the older exe file?

ANYWHO, if you have a newer/gooder version for me to try besides 1.3.32 then I will gladly try it. Hell for that matter if you have an older version (or 3, or 10) that you want me to try in order to isolate an issue then I will do that too. They pop onto a flash drive pretty fast. Otherwise I shall rock version 1.3.32 with a big grin.

THANK YOU FOR THE VERY QUICK SUPPORT!

I'ma try the 528 mb ram and maybe winxp on the other hard drive anyway just for shits 'n giggles...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

T
PowerLogger 2.0 questions...
Replies
6
Views
587
turbokinetic
T
M
Looking for slip yoke options
Replies
7
Views
391
mblum
M
J
Found an 87 GN that has been sitting for 10+ years in storage..
Replies
10
Views
869
granitestategn
G
J
Showing some love to the GN - Time for updates - Looking for Advice
Replies
19
Views
2K
JadeMonkeyStang
J
8
looking for proper fuel pressure setting for the carbed turbo setup
Replies
3
Views
714
81LimitedT
8
Top