so it turns out the innovate afr guage only has a serial port for reading afr into the computer and this has to be coverted into usb to plug into my laptop

im getting into data logging tuning ect and wanted to purchase a laptop for my car.. a cheap used one i can keep in the car and not worry bout it

so to the question would be
is it ok to purchase a used laptop with a older version of windows that already has a serial port built into the machine..just to avoid having to use adapters

like say is there any version of windows to avoid for uprev

 

Not sure. IMHO As long and the port is active and it mates with the plug, I don't see why that wouldn't work, unless the Innovate program doesn't look for the serial port and just the USB. I have the same AFR gauge but I have a newish Toshiba I use.






I personally use an adapter. Its very annoying that there is soo many long cables while driving/logging, including the Uprev Dongle on top of that.

 

I use a very old laptop with windows 98 on it with hyperterminal for utec and even that doesn't have a serial port.
I've used a bunch of different serial to usb adapters and the Belkin ones were the only one's that worked for me(I need 2 for my set-up, 1 for the utec and one for the LC-1)

 

I would not try and use anything older than Windows 7

 

does anyone know if uprev can be used with the Innovate 3873 DB series wideband? It is an LC-1 and uses the same sensor as the MTX-L but the gauge looks alot nicer.

 

a few thoughts ...
#1 - try to get but a laptop with a large/larger screen and/or a decent video card that let you dial up the resolution where you can get as many tables/dials/gauges onto a single screen - I don't know if this applicable to Uprev like it is to Haltech??

#2 - a long cord is a blessing in disguise - there will be times when you want the laptop out of the car to access while you look at stuff in the engine bay or just don't want to be in the car ... a short cord limits where you can monitor the computer. I use a 20ft USB on mysetup and I coil it/zip-tie it when I don't want to deal with the cord.

#3 - if you get a used laptop, ask how the battery life is and/or make sure you can charge the battery inside the car.

Forgive my ignorance - but can you make changes in real-time with Uprev? or do you have to reflash/update the ECU every time for the changes to take affect?

 

There are some settings that require a reflash to take effect but most of the main ones you can tune in real time

 

You can make temporary changes in real-time, but these values are only stored in RAM so when the ECU loses power it will lose these changes. In order to make the changes permanent after live tuning you will need to reflash