Serial Cable Help

[tech324]

I have an NSA320 and I just received my cable today. I am a noob when it comes to using a serial cable. I read forums and this is what I have done so far:

Installed driver from http://www.prolific.com.tw/US/supportDo ... =85&Page=0

Plugged cable into laptop, appears to see it fine

I tried opening putty and setting to COM3, but nothing shows up.

On the NSA320 I have it connected with green, white and black cable (RX, TX and GND)

I guess I may not know exactly what program to use and how to use it.


Please help, I know I am doing something wrong, am I using the correct program? When I open Putty,I set it to serial and then it just shows me a blank window for COM3.

Any help is appreciated, thank you.

[WarheadsSE]

TX goes on RX and vice versa, check that.

[tech324]

I guess I don't know which ports are TX and RX and so forth. Looking at the board, I see this:

* * * * (3 pins, a blank one, and then another pin).

My cable has a red, white, green and black cable.

I am not sure which way to plug them in. I have tried green and white on the middle two pins but I get nothing.

Do I need all cables plugged in? If so, what order?

[WarheadsSE]

..
Let me dig up the pictures...
Only RX/TX/GND

[WarheadsSE]

viewtopic.php?f=27&t=5198&start=10#p29517

[tech324]

I connected the way it shows in the diagram (left off the red wire, I don't think I need the vcc)

I opened putty and set it to COM4, now I get what i call giberish displaying. I assume this should be the boot information.

I have putty set to: 9600 baud, 8 data bits, 1 stop bits, parity none, and flow control as XON/XOFF.

Is there something I am missing for the configuration?


Gibberish showing in my window:



BùBq1jLÜÄ)Ê1ܤB
[î.[1
!¥F1Q!JS¬.KPpLZD¦)3zdr=
)&K`_C
¢®î¡)Í»±J¯J©

[WarheadsSE]

Oy. You do so much reading.

115200 speed, no parity/stop, 8 bits

[tech324]

Thank you WarheadsSE, I am now able to see the boot up.

However I am noticing another issue, I can't type anything or at least it is not registering.

In the post you supplied, loicPi had the same issue and you mentioned bad ground. I have tried putting the ground wire on the third pin and the last pin and all I get is this when I type:

y^@^@r#^@^@eM^@^@b'^@^@oH^@^@oH^@^@t^@^@


I unplugged the ground wire, and now I don't get the weird characters, but it doesn't appear like its registering what I am actually typing. I see it on the screen but its not doing anything. For example: At the end of boot, it says "Please press enter to activate this console".. I hit enter but nothing happens. Should I get a login prompt for this? Should I be able to login and use this like an ssh session?

Thank you again for your help WarheadsSE

[WarheadsSE]

My answer on fixing that was in that thread.

[tech324]

Hi WarheadsSE,
Looking at the other thread, the only mention of fixing the bad characters was a bad connection/loose ground (from what I can see). I have tried multiple pins for the ground and nothing appears to help. Am I connecting something wrong? When I connect the gnd next to the tx and rx I can hit enter and type in the serial console, but I still get gibberish characters.

I don't want to move forward in trying arch linux unless I know I can go back to stock in case there is an issue. Your help is greatly appreciated.