Well, now I've bricked my DME? - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

The old expression about giving just enough knowledge to get into trouble.... but not out of it. 2000 Boxster S. I'm in North America. I was reprogramming my DME map today, (PIWIS 3) as I'm on a ROW map which only shows bank 1 camshaft angle/deviation. The OBD LEV map shows both for some reason. I wanted to do an annual check on deviation since I have a little variocam plastic in my oil, then flash back. Everything going fine, but when flashing the ROW map back, it failed around 85%. I'm guessing because of voltage drop as I had it on a battery tender but not a full charger. DME now seems completely bricked. It shows up as "Unprogrammed DME" in the control modules. with no part numbers or ID. In manual programming the only options are OBD or ROW, and then "no relevent flash files" comes up. If I go into developer mode with no rules, I can't even force a program into it as for some reason it's showing as a 5_2 (It's a 7_2) and the files in PIWIS are reflecting that. None of them will load. If I go into coding instead of programming, most fields come up as negative response, etc. None of the proper numbers. The block 1-10 numbers are just errors. After trying everything I could, I checked fuses just in case, but they're good. Spent all day at this, and now I'm at a loss, before I have it towed to the dealer, can anyone offer any suggestions or paths in PIWIS to reprogram the DME? I have all the relevent prorgraminng codes for the car. I also know the names of the map files that work for this DME, but can't get a way to force them either. but given there is not even an ID for the dme anymore, it's past mapping, and needs to be reprogrammed. Thanks for any help. can PM and then email/chat if able. Edit- now looking for the flash file for a 2000 Boxster S. Any configuration, just a valid file for a ME 7_2 to get it going again. If can help, please PM or email danwec at Gmail dot Com. Thanks

This is what I am afraid of. I have a Piwis 3, although I was not able to get my local dealer to give me the programming code, so I can't actually do anything destructive. I can't help you, but hope you find a solution! And if anyone can tell me how to get the programming code that would be appreciated!

Quotes source post: 670357

You can't, they tightly control this.

sounds like you have to kick the dme into boot mode whcih requires a bench flash. google it; google ai did a good job when i searched ...

Quotes source post: 670357

I had no issue getting all the relevent codes from my car from my local dealer. They had to sit on it for a few days, then the service manager sent me an email with the codes for all 3 transponders, immob, dme, alarm system serial, learning code, and a few others. Radium King, thanks. This is a brand new learning experience for me as I dig deeper into this car. It'll get towed to the dealer in a few days and they'll take a stab at it, but I'll read up on what the boot mode can do. I don't even know what the reason or result would be from that yet. Lots to learn. From what I see so far, you'd put it in boot mode on the bench, but doesn’t that just allow a flash file to be written using some other software? . I'd still have to get ahold of a dump from a working DME? No idea how this procedure works.....or does that act just refresh the bootstrap on the DME by itself and you'd reinstall it into the car after for another PIWIS attempt? LOTS of questions. I have to look at options for replacing the DME if required as well and what I can do with PIWIS 3. Is it mandatory to have the codes from the donor immobilizer?

I was able to use a generic OBD cable to dump my stock 986 image (at least it seemed to work), but from what I understand the immobiliser is coded to the image. If it will help you I can send you that. Can you let me know what dealer you used? I tried the new one in Kitchener-Waterloo, but they had no interest in helping me.

Quotes source post: 670370

Hey there, sent a PM, thanks. From what I gather so far, boot mode allows the dump to happen if the DME is corrupted, but I'm reading conflicting things on whether you need to set it if you're just writing. Possibly if the software can't communicate without it? I've seen procedures where they've grounded the pin the entire time to keep boot mode and others where it's just bumped to ground for a few seconds when starting. Anyways, if the dealer can't do it, the next path I'm thinking of is using either in-car or bench procedure to flash an original file to the DME, which should at least restore functionality, but then using PIWIS, I'd have to recode the immobilzer and DME programming numbers, but I belive I'd absolutely need those from the car with the donor flash as well. Then as the last step, reprogram the map of my specific vehicle.

well, best case is that your piwis is confused as it is mis-identifying your ecu. from what i understand, however, typically that's aftermarket reader behavior and not porsche piwis behaviour. this would suggest to me that something is currupted in the ecu which requires complete vulcan neck pinch to fix. if that is the case, i presume you buy all the stuff to do it, or pay someone to do it. same cost but a 'give a man a fish, teach a man to fish' scenario. ecudoctors has a good rep if you want to ship it out. i expect that all the porshe dealer will do is try to sell you a new ecu/immobilizer setup for many $.

https://www.ecudoctors.com/

Thanks, car is now at the dealer. Will see, but not counting on it. Now I'm looking at paths forward. Easiest would be just send it away to ECU doctors, I appreciate the advice, and now I know that's a way out, but that's going to cost close to a grand CDN and if it happens again I'm in the same boat. I'd rather learn how to do this. I have a lifetime of auto projects behind me. Plus, where's the fun in that?! It's difficult by googling and trying to figure it all in in forum fragments, but I'm trying. Have a lot of gaps. Looking for help from someone who knows how to do this. What I'm looking at is simply how to A) Restore this myself, by putting togther a bench rig and some sort of combination of dumping and writing. I don't know what cables, or software to use. I also don't know if the flash, map, codes, etc are all together or seperate. Or B) Swap the DME. If I can find one that has the immob and dme code included. Possibly, with the VIN from the donor I might be able to convince my dealer to give me the codes. I assume there's no way to do this without the donor codes? There are tons of salvage DME's on eBay... Like radium said, teach a man to fish, and I love to fish! Thanks, PM or email mentioned before. Cheers

i think you'll find that this isn't the place (nor any porshe forum). there are specific hang-outs for dme tuner folks where all the info lives. the porsche dme is bosch just like bmw and others and most of the knowledge is transferrable.

Yeah,I'm going to have to look for this community..... Got a call from the dealership today, they can't fix it and say they need to replace the DME at a cost of almost $6k!! So that's a non-starter. So, now I have to look at options forward. Hopefully I can connect with someone who can help me reflash this myself or some other method to get going again.

try this guy: https://986forum.com/forums/performance-technical-chat/87685-i-want-modify-electronics-my-car-how-do-without-dying-attempt.html he sells dimsport which is one of the platforms you might want to consider using to get your dme back up and running, and seems to know how it all goes together. not certain if he's still here though; sounds like he made some posts that got stuck in moderation which is a forever wait on this forum. note that the dimsport device is $1500 and i think the data is more $ but not sure. ecudoctors would be half that ...

Much appreciated. I've made progress, have a MPPS V18, able to communicate with the unit in boot mode and pull the 512kb file. Problem is now I need a file to write to it. I'm going to start a new thread asking is anyone has one for a 2000 Boxster S, ME 7_2, PN 996.618.605.00, hardware version 026204790. Once its there and recognized by piwis i should be able to rewrite the specific map, transmission etc back to the unit.

i think mangosmoothie on this forum did a lot of hunting for the same info; might be another good person to check with.

Just posting an update here with a happy ending. I couple weeks ago I had bought an original flash file off a site, but it didn't work at all. The owner of the shop asked me to send him what I had left of the corrupted flash, and he manually created a perfectly functional file, and everything is back to life! DME was immediately recognized as a me7.2 again, and everything is fine. Incredible work. Guy has been working on ECU's for 20 years. www.carpro.si , highly recommended for all things tuning and programming! The next step was going to be just to swap in a spare ECU that I now have the ipass #'s for. It just arrived, but I'll be good to have a spare. Cheers!

Glad you got it sorted! I may have to get in touch with them as well. Sorry my stuff was of no help to you though.