Thread: Help solving my GPS / Win7 / D945GCLF2 Problem - RESOLVED

Thanks, I'll be checking the logs tomorrow as well. Didn't know there were any.

Originally Posted by Curiosity

It could be power or some other hardware issue, but that would cause a "Falied to Connect" sound and pop up the USB tree with an "Unrecognized Device." You could also see the error in event viewer. That wasn't mentioned, so I'd assume it's a problem with the driver. That would show an error in the event viewer as well (Critical/Error section, Source: Prolific USB...) and the exception code would tell why it failed. If none of the above errors can be found (and it's connected) then the driver is working.

The driver I'm using from USGlobalSat is working properly. It's showing date 10/27/2008, version 3.3.2.105 in Device Manager under Ports.

Every time I'm this close to buying a BU-353 there comes somebody saying it's not that good.

I'm having a Garmin gps that does not behave well after resuming from hibernation. I'm considering bluetooth GPS, but I'm concerned about batteries etc...

Hope you have yours up and running soon. Please come back with your findings.

To be clear, when this worked (on XP) it worked well and I liked it. It's popular, and well built, but I'm having problems getting it to work with Windows 7. I'm sure there are enough people out there that have opinions as well and I'd try to make sure you sample other opinions. I think Bluetooth may have it's own set of issues as well.

Originally Posted by RipplingHurst

Every time I'm this close to buying a BU-353 there comes somebody saying it's not that good.

I'm having a Garmin gps that does not behave well after resuming from hibernation. I'm considering bluetooth GPS, but I'm concerned about batteries etc...

Hope you have yours up and running soon. Please come back with your findings.

I'm using windows 7 as well, that's when my garmin issues started. This whole USB to serial thing is retarded, if you ask me. Why it need a COM port? Mouse in the past used to use COM ports, what a mess that was. It has evolved. GPS? Not at all.

Bluetooth on the XP was messy, specially before SP2/3. Bluetooth with windows 7, is a breeze. That got me thinking...maybe this will work better now. However I got a nice GPS spot outside the car, no bluetooth waterproof so far.

I would try the Globalsat drivers first. If it work for you, I'll buy the thing. LOL

I found the drivers that were listed on the Prolific site as the same ones I had been using. I uninstalled all the drivers, deleted all of my com ports, deleted all of my USB ports, rebooted, let the system reinstall all the uninstalled ports, reinstalled the Prolific drivers, rebooted and ever combination I could think of, still no change. I haven't checked the voltage on the USB ports yet, but I'll probably do that a bit later. It may be time to move on. What is the collective wisdom of a serial USB like the BR-355? Am I correct in assuming they require a separate cable/connection for the power?

Did you try the globalsat drivers? Maybe they modify them in some way?

Tried both. I think they're the same anyway, but I wasn't about to leave any stone unturned. I'm real close to trying the serial version. That way it may just eliminate all this nonsense.

Originally Posted by RipplingHurst

Did you try the globalsat drivers? Maybe they modify them in some way?

I've used the driver install file for Win 7, but I've installed and uninstalled it several times without any change. I do the install and it always comes back as an "unrecognized device" under USB devices with nothing under Com Ports. I check the driver properties and it reports

all unavailable or unknown and under details it reports the Provider as Microsoft, the driver date as 06/21/06 and the version as 6.1.7600.16385. I tried to manually install the ser2pl.inf, but Windows advised that the inf file I've selected does not support this type of installation.

I've been on this for 4+ hours tonight and it's beaten me. I'll probably spend the next couple doing more re/search for some obscure solution that hasn't worked it's way to the mp3car forum yet.

Originally Posted by Curiosity

The lastest driver from prolific (the non GPS one) will make a BU-353 not send any data at all.

Get the Windows 7 driver from here: http://www.usglobalsat.com/p-62-bu-353-w.aspx

Uninstall the prolific driver, then install this one. The Device Manager MUST show date 10/27/2008, version 3.3.2.105 for the Prolific USB-to-Serial device.