Struggling with COM Ports on ETX-125 PE w WinXP and Win2K--MFC71.DLL?

[tkoegel]

Just got a ETX-125 PE package for my son's 13th birthday.  Am really enjoying the scope.  The ease of use--once I figured out that I needed to calibrate the viewfinder to the scope itself--is breathtaking.  I feel more than a little bit guilty about how easy it is to find celestial bodies in comparison to the frustrations I remember from having a scope when I was a child.  I do worry that a lot of valuable learning that goes into learning astronomy without all the automated help of the Autostar is being lost.  But in terms of getting a 13-year-old to leap right in . . . well, there is no questioning how Autostar does that.

Unfortunately, the warm and fuzzy feelings I have for the scope and the Autostar device are not extending to the Autostar or Autostar update software.  I cannot for the life of me get these things to work.  I am eager to update the Autostar software (firmware?).  I believe the unit I purchased is on 43e--unit is a 497EP.  (The ASU software, once I got it to run on one of my PCs, makes reference to a 43g software--don't know how that relates to the buildEP5Ce1.rom that I found on the site.)  The default alignment, when booted up, is way off the calibration stars.  And even when calibrated, it tends to struggle with the planets.  It gets close but not all the way there.  (Although that spiral search feature usually gets my son and I to where we need to go.)  But I can't get the software/firmware updated to save my life.  I can't find get any PC I own to find the Autostar on the serial port.  This is not a case of USB to Serial translation.  I am blessed with 3 PCs with physical serial ports.  Here are my symptoms/problems.

My current workhorse machine is a Dell Latitude D820 running XP SP3 and a 2 GHz Core 2 Duo processor with 2 GB of RAM.  I downloaded the AutoStar Update software from the link on the Meade site, and thus received ver 4.90.  When I attempted to run the software, I got an application crash from Windows identifying MFC71.DLL as the culprit.  Interestingly, the program ran long enough to advise me that there was a newer version available.  It downloaded 4.91, but that version crashes as well.  Some google searching suggests that a number of applications, including Broadcom network card drivers, use MFC71.dll.  But I've got no clue how to fix the problem.  Thinking I had some issue related to the D820, I dragged out my previous laptop, also a Dell Latitude.  This machine runs on Win2K.  I got the equivalent Win2K error, although this laptop does not have a Broadcom network card.  (It has an Intel card.) 

I then dragged out an even older WinXP desktop, a Sony Vaio.  On this machine, the Autostar Update software WILL run.  But it tells me that there is no Autostar attached, no matter what I do.  I went into the port settings for the conventional serial port and discovered that it was set to use the XON/XOFF protocol.  Turned that off, rebooted, tried again.  Still no joy.  This machine is very resource challenged--it has only 512MB of RAM--so that may be part of the explanation.  But I'm at my wits end of what to do with this.

BTW, the Autostar Suite software loads and runs on all three machines without crashing.  But it can't find the Autostar on any of them.  I tried this with the 3.x version that shipped with my scope and with the 5.5 Web Edition that I downloaded off the site.  Another BTW question: the 3.x version seems to have a ton of data related to the Hubble--is there something I need to do in order to integrate this data into the downloaded 5.5?

Here are the questions running through my mind:

The manual talks about connecting the cord including with the 125-PE with the four-pin side on the Autostar and the six pin side on the RS-232 adapter.  It seems hard to mess this up, as the black straight telephone-type cable will only fit in the Autostar one way.  But I don't know what the references are to six or four pins--looks like there are only three pins connected on either side.  Have I got this right?

Does the Autostar have to be in some particular location in its menus in order to make this work?  I thought there might be something in the menus for "receive new software" or the like.  But I see nothing like this.  And whether I leave it in the default startup location ("press 0 to calibrate or GOTO for menu") or somewhere else, all 3 PCs refuse to see the Autostar.

BTW, I initially tried to rely on my existing install of .NET 2.0 on the D820.  I had that installed already, along with versions 1.1, 3.0, and 3.5 as well.  After failing to get anywhere, in a clean re-install I tried to let it install 2.0 again.  Which it did.  But that did not change the result.  On the other machines, I did not have 2.0 already and thus did a clean install from scratch.  Again, no help.

Any and all thoughts would be appreciated.

Tom

[keithatrochdale]

You have calibrated the motors and trained the scope? (Assuming it is the same as the 60)

Also you may find this site useful:

http://www.weasner.com/etx/menu.html

[tkoegel]

Keith,

Thanks for the tip and link.  If I could get Autostar Update to load on any machine that had a decent amount of memory, that information should come in handy.  But there is some other program on my Dell laptops that is using MFC71.dll that does not work and play well with ASU.  If I boot into safe mode, I can get ASU to run.  Of course, in safe mode you don't have any serial ports working, so that doesn't do you much good.  Every other diagnostic mode that I can run which starts Windows without startup programs and the like does create that crash.  I'm presuming that some other program is loading a version of MFC71.dll and won't share it with ASU.  I actually found about a dozen instances of mfc71.dll on my laptop; renamed all of them except the one in windows\system32, made sure the version that was there was the exact version in the ASU directory, and rebooted.  Still no joy.

I'm surprised no one else has run into this problem.  I don't think there is anything particularly unusual about my two Dell setups.  Obviously there is some common thread that I am missing, as I'm getting the same error on the old Win2K machine and the WinXP machine.  Perhaps Novell client software?

Tom

[tkoegel]

OK, got some time and solved the problem. 

Took my old Win2K laptop and did a clean install of Win2K.  This wiped out whatever the offending program was, and Autostar now works.

It turned out that the COM problem was a physical problem.  The plastic box that converts the DB9 serial port to a telephone style jack had a bent pin on the telephone jack side of things.  When I used a small screwdriver to straighten the pin, it all started to work.

On the downside, it turns out that my son's new ETX-125-PE must have been a pretty old model, as it shipped with the 497 controller and not the 497EP.  Which means that there is no new firmware for the controller, as the release from a few months ago seems to have been pulled from the Meade site.  So this was much ado about nothing (no update to be had).

[rmorano]

I have been having similar problems and have a DEll D830 laptop running windows XP Pro OS Ver 5.1.
Same problem with MFC71.dll.  I will try reloading operating system to see if this clears up my problem.

You need to use the setup menu option statistics to get actual version of firmware.  The 497 classic handbox only reveals 43E at startup.  If stats shows anything less than 43Eg you need to upgrade the firmware.  I have Autostar Suite 3.18 CDs with Updater version 3.9 and could update my firmware from 43Ed to 43Eg with no problem on my D830.  This enabled me to get around the Updater 5.9.1 problem.

If Updater version 3.9 works, I don't understand why Meade can't help us get version 5.9.1 to work.
They said I should update my drivers which I did and still the same problem.  Having to constantly reload the operating system, if this works for me, every time you load other programs using MFC71.dll is no long trm solution.  I hope Meade tech support reads these messages.