by MalibuJack » Mon Jan 15, 2007 6:57 am
Understood, but if the problem is the laptop, at least you can narrow it down to drivers or an OS issue, its easier to back up your important data and rebuild the laptop, or just upgrade.
I have had some issues with older laptops that were a bit slower, and had very early USB ports, but nothing like what you'd describe.
A suggestion for you and your laptop, disable everything that could cause disk access in the background, such as Hard disk protection (software built into the hardware, or software included with the laptop) For the time being, disable any spyware and virus scan tools..
There is a possibility something is preventing something from loading. Why it would work on the EVO7 or EVO8 ecu's and not the 9 is a bit weird, but we have seen the Evo9 ECU be quite sensitive to battery voltage, I wouldn't be surprised if it was also sensitive to timing or other issues.
Now, here's a really silly question, but there is some logic behind this..
1) Do you have any additional hardware tapped into the ECU harness? Something powered off that harness for instance?
2) Do you have a wideband setup that is powered on all the time when the ignition is turned on?
The reason I ask this is knowing the ECU is sensitive, and some troublesome cars need to keep a charger on the battery (or have a really well charged battery) for the reflashing to work sucessfully, perhaps there is something that is drawing alot of current at just the wrong time. For instance the heater in your wideband O2 sensor, or whatnot, or a turbo timer, or amplifiers. Its easy enough to disconnect some of that stuff or wire a switch into some of it to disable things if it proves to be the problem.
I have to admit, your issue is very unique, and if you can read and write an evo8 ECU correctly, then odds are very high the software is okay, the drivers are okay, the cable is okay, but something is interrupting the communications, or causing the 9's ECU to become annoyed.
If it was just your ECU, but it worked with other 9's, then I'd be inclined to think perhaps the ECU has a bad block, but you say it has happened on several others.
But like I said, try the obvious, try a different laptop, clean install, etc, then look for the obvious hardware that could draw enough current or could interfere with the ECU.