Lexia cables & Diagbox

[Gryffindor]

Just found the Lexia & Diagox I bought last year - phew!

I have been watching countless tube vids on installing the software, plus some typed instructions online. But they all vary one way or tother, and are for different releases of the software.

So pls could someone point me to a reliable installation guide, specific (if necessary) to:

• Lexia 3 A.1281z Diagbox V7.83 PP2000 Rev C Full Chip
  
• on a laptop with a fresh install of Win XP Pro SP3 (i.e. no VMs needed)
  
• it only has a 70 gig drive and 1.5 gig of RAM - enough? It won't be used for anything else.
  

Just a link would be fine - no need for a lot of typing (I hope).


I can't find notes on Lexia's cabling anywhere online. Most of it is obvious - most cables join together and create a chain with a USB plug on one end and an OBD plug on tother with Lexia in between, but...

• There are two VGA-USB cables - a mistake by the seller or do I need both? What for?
  
• What is the cable with a female OBD socket leading to two car batt grips and a two-spade connector for???
  
• What is the small 3-pin socket for in the end of the Lexia unit?
  

TIA

[Gryffindor]

Sorry - I meant the drive has 70 gigs of free space.

[saskak]

Just found the Lexia & Diagox I bought last year - phew!

I have been watching countless tube vids on installing the software, plus some typed instructions online. But they all vary one way or tother, and are for different releases of the software.

So pls could someone point me to a reliable installation guide, specific (if necessary) to:

• Lexia 3 A.1281z Diagbox V7.83 PP2000 Rev C Full Chip
  
• on a laptop with a fresh install of Win XP Pro SP3 (i.e. no VMs needed)
  
• it only has a 70 gig drive and 1.5 gig of RAM - enough? It won't be used for anything else.
  

Just a link would be fine - no need for a lot of typing (I hope).


I can't find notes on Lexia's cabling anywhere online. Most of it is obvious - most cables join together and create a chain with a USB plug on one end and an OBD plug on tother with Lexia in between, but...

• There are two VGA-USB cables - a mistake by the seller or do I need both? What for?
  
• What is the cable with a female OBD socket leading to two car batt grips and a two-spade connector for???
  
• What is the small 3-pin socket for in the end of the Lexia unit?
  

TIA

I don't know about the newer version of the Diagbox tool (Rev C), mine if Rev B. The Rev B works perfectly with my M59 (2007). My Diagbox is (on top of my head) 6.20. 70Gb should be enough for the Diagbox. Unless you have actual DVDs and not iso version, you need alcohol120 or other versions to load the DVDs. Unless the Diagbox is original and not copy, you would need keygen or passcode for the Diagbox version. Most of the cracked copies have some sort of readme and this should be enough if you follow it. Most of the cracked versions will contain everything, including the alcohol120.
I use MacBookPro with Parallels Desktop (VM) for the XP machine (66GB hard disk space). I have given the XP VM 2 CPUs and 4Gb RAM.

I only use the 16-pin male to the car's OBDII and to the USB of the computer, AFAIK the rest of the clips and things are for older versions.

[gazahull]

Just found the Lexia & Diagox I bought last year - phew!

I have been watching countless tube vids on installing the software, plus some typed instructions online. But they all vary one way or tother, and are for different releases of the software.

So pls could someone point me to a reliable installation guide, specific (if necessary) to:

• Lexia 3 A.1281z Diagbox V7.83 PP2000 Rev C Full Chip
  
• on a laptop with a fresh install of Win XP Pro SP3 (i.e. no VMs needed)
  
• it only has a 70 gig drive and 1.5 gig of RAM - enough? It won't be used for anything else.
  

Just a link would be fine - no need for a lot of typing (I hope).


I can't find notes on Lexia's cabling anywhere online. Most of it is obvious - most cables join together and create a chain with a USB plug on one end and an OBD plug on tother with Lexia in between, but...

• There are two VGA-USB cables - a mistake by the seller or do I need both? What for?
  
• What is the cable with a female OBD socket leading to two car batt grips and a two-spade connector for???
  
• What is the small 3-pin socket for in the end of the Lexia unit?
  

TIA

[Gryffindor]

Thanks v much chaps.

Too late to try tonight; hopefully I will clock off early tomorrow...

I should have said that mine came on 2 CDs, but all your advice makes sense.

gazahull: your advice re the two files is repeated by others elsewhere, but not in the tube vid you linked to, which seems to refer to an earlier version of Diagbox. What gives pls?

I watched (bits of) a tube vid over an hour long on installing 7.83 - BUT it was in Chinese, including the Windows menus and icons!!! I got the basic gist, but then found this:

http://blog.eobdtool.co.uk/lexia-3-user-...ion-guide/

The pdf link numbered 1 is similar to but more helpful the Chinese vid, and can be read in a few mins! It mentions the two files too. So far, it seems the closest to what I need.

[Gryffindor]

Cheers!

[Gryffindor]

Thanks again gazahull.

Windows .NET Framework is way above my paygrade! (Though reading up on it does give me a sort of idea why you list it.) I also don't have W7 to hand, and have limited free time, so I will stick to XP. It's not much of a laptop anyway (Panasonic Toughbook C-51) and will only be used for Diagbox.

I can watch tube vids at the same time as installing on my telly / HDMI 'monitor', so no probs there.

I have read up about the wait; that's fine and understood but I am now back at work for another week, so for that reason I probably won't be able to make a start until my next rest day.

I will report back on progress.

[Gryffindor]

Okay a partial update. I think I have it installed but it's now too dark to plug it into my car (well that's my excuse - TBH I've had enough of the thing for one day).

I will start with the advice I would like to have been given on day 0, i.e. long, long before even the start of this thread. Do not buy any of the multiple offerings on auction sites or jungle-like retail websites; this program is so convoluted that anyone going for it will save a lot of hassle by buying from a respected specialist firm. That way, the instructions you get on installing it will (I dare say) match the exact package you've bought, plus hopefully there will be some help and advice to call on if need be. Wish I'd done that.

Okay, I had two DVDs. Their sleeves were numbered 1 and 2, but the disks were not numbered. The short story is that it took over 3 hours of getting nowhere with the disk in sleeve 1, including going through lots of different how-tos yet again, until the only conclusion possible was that this disk was a dead end. A very long installation process crashed and burned twice, with a very long error message in a popup - in French even though I had selected English earlier. So I have no idea what it said. I did grab a screenshot second time around.

I then tried the other disk. In short, this disk contained much of the folders and files shown in the vid gazahull linked to (though not at all identical), and in the end his instructions got the thing installed. But there were big differences.

• No need for the first ISO emulating steps.
  
• Plus, my DVD auto-ran when I inserted it and began installing Diagbox.exe immediately.
  
• Strangely, although I had to enter spooky01, that was it - not once did I need to use the keygen programs all day, even though both keygen folders were on the first (second) DVD.
  

Not sure whether the code was already filled in or those screens didn't come up at all. Despite the interminably long waits, some steps fly by too rapidly.

Next, the Diagbox updating process was also rather odd. The update files were on the other DVD so I had to swap disks - no problem unless it isn't expected. Then they had no language option and only spoke French! So I had to go step-by-step whilst freeze framing a youtube vid at the same pace, so that I could see the English language messages in its updater. Then the upside - no need to re-enter scary01 at all. And another one - only two updates needed to get to 7.58. I would have tried 7.59 as Zion recommends if I could have done, but the next update jumps straight up to 7.62, so I left it.

So to sum up, my issues were:

• unnumbered DVDs in wrongly numbered sleeves
  DVD contents which did not completely match any of the how-tos I've seen - even the how-to avi file thoughtfully put onto one of the DVDs did not match them or even the Diagox base version. Plus it was in Chinese.
  
• Spent ages going through several how-tos, trying to find small segments in them which matched each step I was trying to take. My conclusion is that there must be many slightly different variants of the DVD/ISO offerings and many different how-to guides, but getting one to match the other is a dark art.
  

As I said, only gazahull's one came close to one of my DVDs, except that it's intended for downloaded ISOs not DVDs.

I started around 10.30am, and came grinding to a slow and painful halt around 4.30pm. No energy left even just to go to my car and plug it in. If I were to do this again with exactly the same disks, it might take maybe an hour or three.

The laptop was fine. Only 1.5gb of ram, but it went just as fast as other PCs in the vids.

Well, I only think I've installed it okay - not needing the keygens is to be honest bugging me - partly why I daren't plug the thing into my car until a fresh day dawns. We'll see.

[Pedronicus]

Rasputin, I think I mentioned a while back in another thread that I bought my kit from Easy Diagnostics. Granted it was £100+ BUT when I came to install it on the pooter the chap could not have been more helpful. He remoted into my laptop and virtually did the install for me. He then remoted in when I had the kit connected to the car and checked that everything was up and running as it should be. And not a penny was asked for this service even though I did offer. You would never get that sort of service from auction sites or (as you so beautifully put it) jungle-like retail web sites!

[Gryffindor]

I wish I'd seen your thread, and if I did and have forgotten, I wish I'd taken it to heart.

You only paid about twice what I did, but I lost a whole day and I still don't know whether I got it right.

Maybe Easy Diagnostics could pay this forum a commission on future sales.

Oh - since others have to declare elsewhere, I have not been sponsored or paid in any way to endorse any product or service. If only I had been!