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Old 02-29-2016, 03:40 PM   #11
kd2iat
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Join Date: May 2015
Location: Northville, NY in the Adirondacks
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wa8yxm View Post
One word of caution on that Programming cable...

There are some different "Chip" makers (this is the chip that converts the USB to the serial protocol used on the radio for programming)
1: FTDI.. These chips work, all versions of most every operating system made, These work
2: Prolific.. it is a crap shoot, some work, some do not, some work with one OS but not another Will not work with windows 10.
3: FTDI Knockoffs: WILL NOT WORK WITH MODERN WINDOWS,, Not sure about 8, but Windows 10 will destroy these chips. Plug into a Win-10 machine and the chip no longer works,
4: Prolific knockoffs.. Do not work with Windows 10. Not sure about 8, But at least they do not brick.

Had a Prolific in one medical device, they replaced with a Genuine FTDI.. Have several FTDI's including my Baofeng cable, work great.
On the Prolific chips, you can go into the Device Manager and determine which version of the driver is running. On Windows 10, if the version is 3.3 or newer, knockoffs and some true Prolific chips won't run. You can easily find older versions of the drivers on Prolific's website. Park version 3.2 on your computer. Then you can go into the Device Manager and roll back the driver. Then the cable should work just fine.

I have a bunch of USB programming cables for Motorola radios and most of them now need the driver rolled back. I spent an anxious hour googling and reading about this on the day after I upgraded to Windows 10. It works fine, but if you reboot the computer, you'll probably have to roll back the driver again the next time you use the cable. A bit annoying but it does work. At least you don't have to toss those cables.

If anyone needs help rolling back a driver, let me know in this thread, and I'll post more detailed instructions.
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