[Lotuswins]

Hello All,

So I got my TCB the other day, went down and bought a USB A to USB micro B cable.  I pulled up OP, and connected the TCB into an open USB port in my laptop.  After I got the new device installed jingle, the screen went blue and said Windows has detected a problem and needs to reboot, please wait while we gather data.  I unplugged the TCB and then had to turn the laptop back on and everything started back up normally.   I had installed the USB drivers I thought, but not sure since this thing goes into panic mode right after I plug it in. 

Do I have a bad TCB?  or is it possibly something I did? or didn't do?

thanks for any help.

Jerry Rude
Noob at this stuff......

[LukeZ]

Windows should definitely not give you a BSOD (blue screen of death) when you plug in the TCB. The worst that should happen is that it doesn't work, but if causes Windows to crash then something is wrong.

I wouldn't know exactly what could cause this, as I have never encountered it before. Potentially it could be a hardware issue - maybe there is a short on the board. Are you able to try it on a different computer, and see if the same thing happens?

[Lotuswins]

I don't have another windows pc, i could try it on a macbook pro....maybe I'll try that.  I thought it might be the cable, but i just plugged in my android tablet to the pc, and it worked fine.  I checked the traces that I could see on the board, and nothing looks shorted.  The main chip though, on one side the traces look skewed a little.  Did they do any QC on these things? (obviously not on the light issue).  Thanks....I'll let you know.  Jerry

[LukeZ]

If you are able to post a picture of the board I can see whether the processor looks ok or not, they sometimes settle slightly off-kilter but that doesn't necessarily mean there is a short, it could go either way. But I know it might be hard to take a clear photo.

It sounds like you only tried this once. Now that your laptop has rebooted, what happens if you plug in the TCB? Does it reboot again, or keep on going? What do you see in Device Manager on your laptop? Are there entries with a yellow exclamation next to them?

There are many things that could potentially be the cause, including a hardware fault on your laptop, Windows driver issues, or the TCB itself. You really need to narrow down the possibilities before you can make progress on solving the problem.

If you could test the TCB on a different computer and it worked, that would seem to indicate the TCB is not the most likely problem, and you could start looking into your laptop. Alternatively if it caused the other computer to crash as well, we might reasonably assume it was the TCB. We know HK didn't do QC on the boards but at the same time other user's TCBs seem to be working fine with Windows.

Do you get the same behavior when you plug some other USB device into your laptop? Say a flash drive or USB mouse? If you Google "bsod when plugging in usb device" there are lots of people with a similar problem for all kinds of devices, and for all kinds of reasons.

[Lotuswins]

Hi Luke,

Thanks for the suggestions.  I plugged the TCB into our macbook pro (can't do more than that...its the wife's, and she would have my skin if I screwed that up), but no rebooting or anything.

So there's hope?  I then reloaded the drivers, or so I thought, went thru the instructions and plugged in the TCB.....no issue initially.  Brought up OP configurator, and it says I'm not connected to the device.  So with the TCB still plugged in, I tried to reinstall the drivers, bang....blue screen of death.  The "stopfault" is Page fault in non paged area.  I'm using a ASUS laptop, AMD A10-5750M processor with windows 10.

My Device manager doesn't have a listing for Ports, but instead lists it under 'Other Devices' when I plug in the TCB, and a very small '?' next to the left of the 'USB Serial Device'.  It looks like a tiny image of a tower computer with a '?' at its top left.  All the LED's are blinking okay (I assume that is right).

So apparently the board is okay, no shorts or anything since it behaved on the Macbook, its internal to my PC.  No other issues with this laptop, memory sticks work fine, I use a logitec keyboard & mouse on one USB port, etc. No entries in device manager with yellow exclamation next to them....

So I left click on the USB Serial Device under 'Other Devices', and no drivers are shown, its 'unknown'........

So I try and install the driver for 64 bit AMD.....and bang, blue screen of death again.  Any more suggestions?  thanks for your patience, I'm not exactly the computer nerd my son is......

[Lotuswins]

Could this have something to do with the driver certification that windows 10 requires?  I recall having to turn that off when programming the Turnigy 9x with Tanker9x firmware.

[LukeZ]

No, I don't think this has anything to do with driver signing... and anyway the FTDI drivers are certified.

The "Page fault in non paged area" is your best clue - many things can cause this and you can Google it to read more. It can be frustrating to diagnose as it can be semi-random, which it appears to be in your case. In my experience it often points to faulty or failing RAM, though there are other possible causes as well.

There are diagnostics you can run yourself but if you are not a big computer nerd, as you say, I would recommend you take your laptop in for service.

In this case, I don't think the issue is with the TCB.

[Lotuswins]

Hi LukeZ,

So I googled, and did all the things they suggested in the tutorials (chkdsk /f/r, sfc/scannow, Advance settings set page to zero, ram diagnostic, etc.) and all passed but still have the issue when I plug in the board.  So rather than take my computer down to have it serviced, since nothing had surfaced prior to this board being plugged in, how about I do the hobbyking claim (bad mosfets anyways), and if they don't want the board back, I send this off to you since you don't have a sample as yet?

Would this work for you?  I won't need the board back, since I will be whole, and you can test and dissect this thing as you will.

Jerry

[LukeZ]

I would definitely encourage you to file a claim regardless, since you are owed one. In fact I have been pleading with them to issue refunds to everyone whether they file a claim or not, since they already know everyone has a defective board. But clearly they have not gone for that.

Keep the board while you wait for the claim to resolve itself, that could take considerable time to judge from the experience of others. In the meantime, if you get a chance to try the board in some other Windows computer, maybe at a friend's house or whatever, then please do so and let us know the result.

I would rather not take your board but we can revisit that later when the claim is complete. It may be that HK wants you to send it back, it sounds like they have asked for that in at least one case.

[Lotuswins]

Thanks LukeZ,
I put in the claim, and its at 'Proceed to Settlement' phase already.  I have an old windows XP machine sitting in the house that hasn't been turned on in maybe 7 years I could power up just to test it....Too bad I can't program it from an android tablet, or Ipad?  That's asking too much, I'm sure....so I'll let you know once I find something to test it again on.....may be awhile. 
Jerry

[LukeZ]

Yeah, keep me posted, both on the board if you get a chance to test it but also on how HK deals with your refund.

I agree phone/tablet configuration would be great. It's not asking too much really, just too much of the current programming staff. Hopefully that is something that could be realized someday.

[Lotuswins]

Hi LukeZ,

Well, that was quick, I put the claim in this morning, and bingo its approved and I now have $54 in store credit. 

Jerry

[LukeZ]

Store credit! Of course. They're fast with the store credit, which is their way of keeping your money (you'll spend $50 bucks on some other junk they sell that only cost them $5).

What we were actually told, repeatedly, is "refund." Getting them to do what they said they would do is not something that goes fast. In fact, I am starting to think it may be impossible.

If you are satisfied with store credit then ok, otherwise I would encourage you to write them and point out their mistake.

I have raised this with them numerous times and did so again today, but so far have nothing to show for it.

[LukeZ]

For those following this thread, Jerry sent me his board to examine. I've tested it on Windows 10 and Windows 7 both without issue.

Although we still don't know what the problem was with Jerry's laptop, it would seem the TCB board as built by Hobby King in fact functions as expected (other than the MOSFET problem we were already aware of).

If anyone else has problems with Windows 10 please feel free to post here, but for now I'm going to consider this one resolved.

[Lotuswins]

Hi Luke,

I got the board back today, and promptly tried to load the drivers again:

First I clicked on the USB serial converter that pops up when you plug in the board. 
2nd I clicked on Update Driver
3rd I selected Browse my computer for driver software
4th I selected Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer and it came up with "USB serial Converter"
5th I then hit next....and it loaded!! 

So Next I did as above for the item under "Other Devices" which pops up also when you plug in the board
and did the same steps as above, but this time it came up with a hole list of devices under the 4th in sequence above, and I picked the one with the same icon that was on the "other devices"....  and presto it actually loaded.....

I went back to try and duplicate to document the steps, but the "other devices" no longer appears....curious. 

So I loaded OP and flashed the latest firmware....worked like a charm. 

Thanks for ALL of you help Luke...now on to testing on my tank test rig to ensure all the functions work. 

Jerry