SteveWillis Posted October 6, 2015 Share Posted October 6, 2015 I updated the firmware on my Elite today, the first six attempts failed! I finally recalled reading in the distant past that the usb cable should be plugged into a port on the motherboard at the back of the desktop. I had plugged the cable into a usb port on an expansion panel on the front of the PC. As soon as I plugged it in to a usb port connected to the motherboard, the update was fine. I could see immediately that the update was taking much longer to download than the first six attempts and figured that was a good sign.So remember - plug the usb cable into a port on the motherboard, not an expansion board. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96RAF Posted October 6, 2015 Share Posted October 6, 2015 Yes - taking a long time to load the update is always a good sign.A quick transition of the loading line always results in failure in my experience.I may try a back USB 2.0 port on my Win 8.1 machines as I have always used the front USB 3.0 port resulting in a fail and having to revert to my good old XP machine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael_A Posted October 6, 2015 Share Posted October 6, 2015 Any tips for laptop users? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael_A Posted October 6, 2015 Share Posted October 6, 2015 Any tips for laptop users? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yelrow Posted October 6, 2015 Share Posted October 6, 2015 Buy a desktop? or find a friend with one. . john Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishmanoz Posted October 6, 2015 Share Posted October 6, 2015 No issues with a laptop whatsoever, just plug it directly into a USB connector in the laptop, not via a hub. However, it is pretty clear that it is unlikely to work with Windows 8 although will work with 7 and earlier. I don't think there have been any reports with Windows 10 as yet. However, I would suspect that the driver that is with the latest version 1.62 of RM via the link at the top of the RM forum would work if the one that comes with the firmware update doesn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Augustus Caesar Posted October 7, 2015 Share Posted October 7, 2015 Plugging a USB cable into any expansion slot on a PC will result in less power to the hardware. Thus the reason for using sockets presoldered to a motherboard and thus those on the rear of the PC. Laptops are usually OK but a hub works the same way as an expansion slot on a PC and is NOT recommended for use with the eLink or Elite. If you have USB three sockets on a laptop it is best not to use them either for this purpose and results are intermittent and some of these sockets are NOT backward compatible to USB 1.1 or even 2 although they advertise that they are on occasion. Certain laptop models and manufacturers have this issue and these have been outlined on here before. When running your railways on USB sockets on laptops it is usually a good idea to have nothing else taking up resources so as much power as possible is reaching the socket you require for this purpose. I am not going into the technicalities of all this as it is unnecessary but if you have a piece of hardware connected while running the eLink for example then the latter may not be getting enough draw to run it properly. It depends upon how the boards in laptops are structured. There is a bit of a debate around this topic but I have experienced loss of power (hardly noticable in most cases anyway) when more than one USB socket is used at the same time... especially if they closer together on one side of the motherboard and powered via the same connections on the board. Not that this solves any issues but it is worth considering and taking into account when running your trains. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teedoubleudee Posted October 7, 2015 Share Posted October 7, 2015 Laptops are usually OK but a hub works the same way as an expansion slot on a PC and is NOT recommended for use with the eLink or Elite. Does that include powered hubs AC? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yelrow Posted October 7, 2015 Share Posted October 7, 2015 Teed, yes, when i first started with elink, i had a powered hub, and HRMS, suggested i remove it, as known to cause the odd prob. john Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael_A Posted October 7, 2015 Share Posted October 7, 2015 Crumbs, what a minefield. So Hornby prevents me from upgrading my Windows. Nice to know.... ;) But thanks for the replies (and warnings) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96RAF Posted October 7, 2015 Share Posted October 7, 2015 Very odd John that according to my memory - way, way back HRMS advised that use of a hub was a no-no for RM kit unless it was powered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Augustus Caesar Posted October 7, 2015 Share Posted October 7, 2015 Laptops are usually OK but a hub works the same way as an expansion slot on a PC and is NOT recommended for use with the eLink or Elite. Does that include powered hubs AC? As John says TWD... yes, unfortunately.Thing is powered USB hubs are more trouble than they're worth. I bought one for a client who insisted he wanted it and he had me replace it twice from a well known electronics high street store.The problem? As soon as it was plugged in the system tried to boot from it even when the BIOS was set to boot from the hard drive in his system... secondly, when removed from boot stage and applied later the DVD drive would power up and constantly spin with the LED on the drive staying almost constantly red... which means over spinning. The system became virtually non-responsive.More alarmingly than that when the system was powered down with the hub still connected the DVD drive would be constantly lit and attempting to spin... with no power to the motherboard!!!Obviously there was a fault with this design and the store were happy to refund my client and withdrew these from sale at the local store... nationally I have no knowledge of what they did with them.This is a rare thing to occur and I believe the polarity of this hub was totally incorrect and is what caused the problem. When connected WITHOUT the mains plug it worked but not very well. So, for the question... powered hubs can give extra juice to power your equipment but personally I would be VERY selective about using them at all as most of the time you don't really need that extra power anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Augustus Caesar Posted October 7, 2015 Share Posted October 7, 2015 Very odd John that according to my memory - way, way back HRMS advised that use of a hub was a no-no for RM kit unless it was powered. You can possibly get away with it most of the time but I would not recommend it regardless of Hornby's advice... but that's me! If you've got a USB slot on your device - use it for RM... use the hubs for everything else if slots are limited. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96RAF Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 @ACLets not confuse Hornby advice with HRMS advice.They are 2 completely different and unconnected animals. re powered hubs - mine are stuffed in a box somewhere in disgrace due to poor performance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Augustus Caesar Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 Quite correct RAF... my error admittedly. It's too easy sometimes to 'think' Hornby and naturally type away without checking. Good spot!! :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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