I have connected my GSM-BLE board to the battery and display. Boots up as it should. When I connect it to a PC-USB no folders show up in explorer, even when I manually scan for new hardware. I do see the charging indicator change on the display when I plug it in. When I connect it to the PC powered off. Same thing, no ports display in device manager, although the lights on the board turn red and then solid green as it should. I have installed the drivers manually with no luck. I have tried several USB cables and a Win7-32 bit, Win7-64 bit and WinXP PC. I also bought a spare GSM-BLE and have the same problem, and have tried connecting power directly to the power connectors on the board to eliminate a weak battery. Obviously I missed something. I have been through the forums and manuals many times. All functions seem to work except a PC will not detect that it has been plugged in.
I’m not sure about previous versions of Windows but I had to disable Driver Signature Enforcement in order for the Rephone to show up under the COM port section of my Device Manager in Win8.1. You might have to do something like that, otherwise, the Rephone will continue to show up in the “other devices” or “Universal Serial Bus Controllers” sections.
I followed the instructions in the Rephone Wiki under “Install the Driver”: http://www.seeedstudio.com/wiki/Arduino_IDE_for_RePhone_Kit
Thanks. Actually I don’t have a problem installing the drivers. I can install them manually. The ports never show up in Device Manager. When I plug in the USB nothing happens. No ports show up under Other Devices or anywhere else.
First: does it even appear as an unrecognized device? Could you send a screenshot of your device manager?
Also I had some usb problems with other devices in the front usb, but the same stuff worked with rear usb. Try that!
Oh, and last but not least: sometimes removing-reattaching the battery (without usb cable) solved connection problems for me.
It does not show up as an unrecognized device. There are no changes to Device Manager when I plug/unplug it even when I manually scan for changes. Other USB devices I have do show up as I plug/unplug them (mice/keyboards/BT transceivers). I have also tried unplugging all other USB devices.
I have also tried every USB port on all 3 of the PCs I am testing on.
Update - Tried USB cable number 4. This one is old, beat up and about a foot long. This one will work in about 1 in 10 tries. It will also only work on one of my PCs for one of my boards and on a rare occasion the second board on a second PC. All of these cables work fine for any other device I plug them in with. That’s a little frustrating.
Thank you though for the suggestions and the views.
Maybe look for bad USB soldering on the rephone board. It will be tricky.
Even you can try with an USB breakout to measure if the 2 USB data lines are good or not.
Hey I noticed something that you might be running into. Once plugged into USB, and even though I power it up with the power button and the LED turns green, most of the time the Rephone doesn’t actually appear in my Device manager. I have to hold the power button down until the LED turns red and then press it back on (LED turns Green again) to have the RePhone show up in my COM ports section. Is this possibly the issue you might be having?
When you plug in the USB when the Rephone is “OFF”, the module is in Mass Storage Mode, so you will not see a COM port.
When you hold the power button down for 2 seconds, the module is in Flash/Debug Mode, so you can see the COM port.
here is the documetion: seeedstudio.com/wiki/Xadow_GSM%2BBLE