russellfire Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 hi,my son has purchased western express with elink,much to my pleasure.he is a newbie to model railways and he is having trouble linking his windows 8 laptop to the elink controller. Much to my dissappointment as well.A: sorry if ive asked this question on the wrong discussion site.B:could anyone please help us newbies.weve downloaded railmaster but when we go to link up, the laptop does not recognise elink and keeps telling us to try after 5 seconds,are we doing something wrong. thanksRussell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishmanoz Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 Hi Russell, welcome to you and your son to the forums. It isn't unusual to have initial setup problems with eLink and RM, particularly on the later Windows versions. However, these are almost always fixable. For a start, go to the RM forum (you are in General here) to the top locked thread in the forum Setting Up and Getting Started. Go through all of it and particularly the bottom post from HRMS including the 2 extra lines in you ini file. Report back on how you are going. Sometimes your AV can be difficult to fix, but let us know and we'll offer more advice if needed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russellfire Posted March 30, 2016 Author Share Posted March 30, 2016 thank you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishmanoz Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 No problem Russell, all part of the usual service with a smile on here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russellfire Posted March 31, 2016 Author Share Posted March 31, 2016 still no connection to elink, installed/uninstalled RM several times and still telling me it cannot find elink.what are we doing wrong. Is there more to it than just an initial install. Appreciate the help thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96RAF Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 @RussellIt is unlikely to be the install, providing you are using the latest version of RM from the link at the top of the RM page, more likely to be either your AV blocking it - see also the separate 'how to deal with anti-virus' guide in the stickies area or at AC's web site linked also from the stickies. - or it is the sequence in which you are starting stuff up and letting it all connect. Some people find that starting the eLink first then the pc later works (it works for me) and other swear the other way round is the only way, whichever you use just make sure your pc has fully started before starting RM, as most pcs take forever to load all their stuff even if they appear to be ready to go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrissaf Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 I take it you have installed the eLink driver into your Win 8 laptop. With the eLink connected to the laptop (USB 2.0 port not USB 3.0) does 'Device Manager' show an entry for the eLink that says something like "USB Serial Com X" where X is a number. This number needs to be 4 or less for eLink to work. Have you checked your railmaster.ini file and confirmed that Check controller=1 and Alternative comms=1 are present. If the Com X number is below 5, then make sure that the SAME Com port number is allocated in the 'System Settings' page in RailMaster..If this all means nothing to you, go to the locked thread at the top of the forum RailMaster section titled "Railmaster: Setting up and Getting Started" then scroll down to the last post titled "RailMaster & Windows 10". The above is all contained there in greater descriptive depth. Don't be put off by the reference to Windows 10, that post is valid for W8 as well. This is the thread that Fishman pointed you to in his earlier reply to you, but if you have followed it and can still not connect, you must have missed out some important steps. They are all important steps and need to be followed carefully, which is why he pointed you to it..RailMaster / eLink does work with Win 8 it just needs a bit of manual configuring to do so. In the same thread (just above the Win 10 post) is a post describing start up procedure, what to connect and switch on and in what order. This is not an issue with the Elite controller, but does seem to help if this procedure is followed when using the eLink which seems to be more problematic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishmanoz Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 Russell, while AV is an issue for Internet communications for activating the software and sending emails to HRMS from within the Help window of RM, it will not be stopping your eLink communicating as RAF implied it may. Chris has emphasised all the steps I pointed you to as being important, now let me emphasise Chris's. You absolutely must do it all. If you are still having problems after double-checking everything though, email HRMS from facility in the Help window of RM and tell them your problem. You should get an immediate auto acknowledgement of that to your email address, it will be AV if you don't, so you will then need to check that out from the AV guide installed on your desktop. Come back here if that is a problem. HRMS will be back to you in short order once they receive your email and will get it going for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishmanoz Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 PS. Multiple uninstall/installs are completely unnecessary as RAF said. Just install the latest version from the link at the top of the RM forum over whatever version you have running. Which emphasises that you do need to follow all the steps we pointed you to and there is nothing else you may need to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrissaf Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 One additional point overlooked in previous replies. It is imperative that you configure Railmaster to 'Run as Administrator'. This you would normally do by right clicking the rm_setup.exe file and choosing 'Run as Administrator' during the RM installation. If this step was overlooked, then find the railmaster.exe file or the desktop shortcut, right click it, and tick the 'Run as Administrator' checkbox. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishmanoz Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 That should have been covered Chris, it is one of the very first items in Setting Up and Getting Started, not surprisingly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishmanoz Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 In fact, it is the 2nd item in the first post. Noticed an error now as well, wasn't one when written. Says to use an RM not Windows driver, that now is not always true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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