Windows 10 with eLink and railmaster

[Fishmanoz]

Think AC and I were posting at the same time just now too with similar advice except my suggesting getting HRMS to try.

 

And just a note about your saying you emailed HRMS on the 24th and them saying they didn't receive anything until Sunday - our combined experienced user conclusion here will be that most likely your AV blocked the email.  A number of previous posters have insisted they have done all the correct procedures to ensure RM can get through, only to have HRMS discover on logging in that wasn't the case.  I'd agree that is less likely given what you've told us about what you've done but it is such a common problem we will always suggest it be checked from the simple turn it off and try all the way to following AC's excellent and detailed coverage of the topic. 

[Bigskybirds]

 Hi AC

The firmware is 1.07

I do not use a recovery partition, that also goes. I use restore disks only.

Hi Fish

I can assure you that AV has not blocked any of my emails, although I am not going to publish my settings on a forum for obvious reasons.

We will see if RM find anything that I have missed, hopefully they do, I would prefer to look like an complete idiot rather than not get it working on W10.

[Bigskybirds]

RM have been on my system today, the setup was correct so they think it is an error with the USB subsystem or the eLink controller  

I think we can possibly rule out the USB subsystem since I tried a PCI usb card and it still failed.

The Dell advance replacement system arrives tomorrow, it is a XPS8900 Windows 10 Pro system fully windows 10 compliant so if it does not work on that I will call it a day.

[Mobileadam]

Well done for preserving. I do hope the replacement PC fixes the problem.

 

I wonder why eLink is so fussy with USB things? I assume printers and other USB devices work without a problem so why not that little box of tricks! It's a shame there are no other software applications that can connect to Elink to try and rule things out. Obviously Windows can identify it so why not RM. 

 

Keep us posted

[Bigskybirds]

 It is strange that the windows 10 connection issue affects mainly Dell and Lenovo two of the largest PC manufacturers especially for business systems. I worked for an Aerospace company that had thousands of dell PC's deployed. The reason dell was the supplier was compatibility.

The motherboard used is Intel who also make the chipset they say it is windows 10 compliant.

I have some satellite radio equipment that uses a Comm emulator and is only compliant with Windows XP,8,7 so just connected that to my usb port and it came up first time. So all this puzzles me unless the elink is faulty but it works without issue on Windows 7 and on a Dell.

Lets see what happens when I connect it to the new PC.

[Augustus Caesar]

Just to pass on a few little comments to the last couple of posts...

 

@MA... while some hardware will work flawlessly with USB sockets no matter what their make or structure you have to realise that not all hardware is made as sturdy or as sound as others. Let's assume ALL USB sockets out there are perfect and the eLink would be deemed great for sale by Hornby etc... yet when one gets both pieces of hardware home one is found to be incompatible with the other. The USB socket would be perfect but the eLink may not have the right hardware, software or compatible electrical components for it to work with the USB socket on a given machine. Only a couple of things are needed for the USB socket to work... electricity and the correct hardware and wiring. The eLink though would need the USB socket to work correctly, its own hardware to be compatible, the software to understand communication between the USB socket and its own hardware it relates to and also the correct current to go through each component.

Now I am not saying for one moment the problem is the eLink or whatever... I use this purely as an example and in simple terms. Finally, not all printers and USB related hardware works every time with USB and it makes no difference what the operating system is. Each component or written software code has to communicate on a level everything understands.

Phew.... hopefully that might allow some to see how in depth each thing is when it comes to manufacturing and then deploying any hardware or software.

 

@BSB

When it comes to chipsets the Intel brand is usually very good. It's one flaw is graphics... on newer machines you would expect the chips to handle some gaming effects when run in Windows 10 for example. Wrong... they don't perform well at all. Some very basic but admittedly older games just don't want to know.

This also goes for other chipsets too but again I use this as an example.

Intel can install chipsets which do different jobs on laptop boards for example. You may have two chips performing switchable graphics and another chipset driving the main bus etc. The latter sets are usually excellent and cause little issue. But the former, if not on a gaming laptop say, may not perform well at all.

 

So, hopefully, we can get a better view of what the likes of Hornby and others are up against when certain machines use chipsets or USB sockets etc. that just don't cut the mustard and are 'made on the cheap'...

[Bigskybirds]

 Hi AC

Thankfully I do not play computer games, never have.

All I want is for photo/video editing and it to work with the eLink :-(

At least tomorrow should see the end to this one way or another.

I just connected a Canon DSLR to the pc and controlled it via usb and that worked as well.

[Augustus Caesar]

@BSB

Games? I play very little of them... an occasional Caesar IV which is a city building game and my interest in Rome and all its glory or gory draws me to it!!! :-)

We await your findings tomorrow with interest...

[96RAF]

Oh for a universal test box to plug into whatever is playing up and without any button pressing it would tell you where the problem was and would sort it out for you.

 

This could be marketed with my ideal keyboard which has one big red button which when pressed knows exactly what you want and gets on and does it.

 

Maybe I should go back on the meds... 😛

[Bigskybirds]

  New Dell Windows 10 PC arrived

Still having same issues,  Ihave managed to get it to connect once.

[Mobileadam]

How annoying!!!

 

Does it lose connection after a reboot then? I suppose when you get it running (or got it running) there was some magic serious of steps that helped but without knowing exactly what they are it must be impossible to locate the problem. 

[96RAF]

@BSB

 

OK last thing to try before giving control to HRMS.

 

You can reset an eLink same as you can reset a Select or Elite but rather than do it through menus you do it with the little red button in the big red Stop button.

 

During a unit reset the eLink light will go out and come on after the reset/reboot is complete.

 

Normally pressing this button will just re-establish the connection between whichever controller is in use (one or more) and RM.

 

So crank it all up again and if it fails to establish proper comms hit the little red button and see what happens.

[Bigskybirds]

 Okay I will try to make this brief

On first install of RM I used the download from RM site and I was having the same problems as the other PC.

For a separate issue not related to this I needed to reset the build of the new pc. When I installed RM the second time I used the CDrom supplied with the eLink. During install it came up with a box saying the firmware need to be upgraded to V1.05 This was odd since it was already at 1.07 and had worked on the windows 7 system as 1.07.

The update to 1.05 got two bars along then failed. I shut RM down and upgraded the firmware to 1.07 manually.

When I started up it connected and worked fine. There are still issues, if I close down I cannot restart RM without power off/on of the elink box. I do have the required extra two lines in the conf file for windows 10.

So its 80% there, it does connect and work, not always but most of the time. So it may have been firmware corruption or a fault with the eLink box.

I shall leave it there now, my separate DCC controller arrived today so if I have problems with the elink I have another way to control the layout.

I have informed RM by email of the above.

Thanks all.

[Mobileadam]

Well that sounds like good news. 

 

Is there a ini setting that forces a restart of the Elink when your start RM. which might mean that you don't need to power cycle the Elink if you have shut down your PC but then start it up again. I'll check and post back later. 

[Mobileadam]

The ini setting is Reset Elink on start = 1 but that is the default. Could be worth checking though. 

[Bigskybirds]

 Hi

Thanks for that I did check and it is set to 1

[Mobileadam]

Dare I suggest you try Alternative comms = 0 and check controller = 0? I finds it seems to reset the Elink better upon startup If I have had some strange activity. 

 

I know it goes against the guidance but....

[Augustus Caesar]

@BSB

From what you say above I find the fault is purely between the communication of the PC (no matter which one - it now makes no difference) and the eLink controller.

You have tried the 1.05 update and this fails. That almost proves a fault in communication or the box itself.

I've had that with the Elite and eLink until I managed to rewrite both the first or ealiest version of the firmware available to each.

If you can get a copy of the firmware from that original CD to install you may just correct any part of it that isn't corrected with v1.07.

Obviuosly when installing firmware the whole firmware is sometimes overwritten but to save time some firmware only overwrites code that is necessary to be replaced by new code. There is only so much room firmware can be written to and this depends upon the chips used. If you have upgraded firmware on laptop or PC motherboards you will notice that the progress bar sometimes whips along at certain stages... this is the area of the code that is not needed to be overwritten.

Try and get an earlier firmware installed, even if it fails at times two or three times or more, and then go for the latest version. Of course, you will need to see if the controller is found in Device Manager correctly.

Also make sure you do any downloads of firmware etc via ethernet rather than wireless just to make absolutely certain your file is not corrupted in any way. Minor points I know but well worth saving any hassle later on if you find this method works!!

Let us know the outcome. I realise it's more testing but the experience will help for the future as you will probably know from your working life experiences.

Hope this helps... 😀

[Bigskybirds]

Hi AC

The only firmware that was successful is 1.07

At least it is working although I did not have an issue with Windows 7

I am a hardware engineer what's wireless? :-)

And now its time for a rest. 

Cheers

[Mobileadam]

I've found my firmware didn't update using RM, got errors etc and failed messages although I don't have loss of connection / USB issues like BSB so I'm not convinced it's a faulty eLink. Probably just a design thing combined with the software and USB drivers etc.

 

Sounds like BSB is in a better position now

[Yelrow]

AC, hi, is there any mileage in the make of the computer, as from memory, Dell machines have cropped up several times before. I have not heard of many probs with Acer/ toshiba. Do they use a different usb make up. john

[Bigskybirds]

 It could be that more people with Railmaster use Dell PC's so there are more issues logged.

Only RM can answer that one, or a survey.

In my case it was communication with the box and firmware.

The firmware did originally update without errors but only installing from the CD made it try to go back to an earlier revision and solve the problem for me.

Swapping PC made no real difference since it also works on my other Dell.

[Yelrow]

BSB, hi, yes, you could well be right, but i seem to remember posts in the past, where probs were cited with dell. AC, is the expert. He will no doubt have a view. In the early days, dell did not have a good press, but now, its probably acer, or somebody else. From  my simple observations, it appears to relate to usb sockets, and their internal connections. Your unlucky with windows 10, as until   microsoft brought that out, the Elink connection problems had all but disappeared.. Pesume your new DCC controller, is not an Elite, like most of ours are. john

[Fishmanoz]

John, AC told us in this thread only on Tuesday that USB problems occur with Lenovo and sometimes Dell.  At the same time, he told us it is unlikely to be a W10 issue, which you may have noticed has caused little problem since the MS driver problem was solved last year.  Once people get their ini file entries correct for their particular setups.

 

But then, most will know that you keep playing up W10 issues, and I keep playing them down.  Maybe reality is in the middle somewhere?  And somewhere else for Bsb.

[Yelrow]

fishy. i dont keep playing them up, It was HRMS thenselves that went into print  about the fix they needed  to come up with, which would not have been necessary, without the windows revision. As regards Dell, there are much older threads mentionning the  problem, than last week. Bear in mind, our posters RM was fine with his windows 7 machine, which you have decided to overlook to support your case. john