I've seen them get smashed, but don't recall any instances of one just failing. I've heard a couple reports of DOA out of thousands sold. You should perform the communication loopback tests shown in the manual to isolate your problem.

Yea, mine's in pretty good shape - it used to work. Loopback test was fine, just trying to rule stuff out. Thanks,

So it would be REALLY cool if the chipset on these was somewhere along the cord instead of at the plug; it makes my ecu take up too much space. I'll have to find a short serial extension so my ecu doesn't need so darn much room on both sides with db37 and this. It does however work well, thanks! As a side note it is a little funny that you say don't use usb extension cables and your adapter requires one. ;) I understand the advice though.

You will want to put the extension on the RS232 end. The USB extension is something I'd only recommend using if your laptop has problems with it staying in from vibration.

Ah, you should charge extra and ship one with it. :) I will do that though, my win8 tablet is nice and tight.

I'm having similar issues to the OP. Car was working great and was giving a friend a ride. Stopped to put gas into the car and now it won't start. Fuel pump isn't priming and I cannot connect to the ecu. I hooked up the stock 99 ecu and the motor fired right up.

Things I've tried.
-New fuel pump
-Fuel Pump Relay
-New Main relay
-Changing Baud rate in Windows
-Changing to a different laptop with fresh Tunerstudio install
-Changing the com port

Symptoms:
-Wideband has power (MS3 basic so the wb02 gets power from it)
-No Fuel pump priming
-When you plug in the USB cable it detects a usb-serial adapter and prompts for driver
-Auto detect when I select new project picks up the controller on the ports
-I don't have a laptop with a serial port
-I ordered the usb-serial adapter from DIYautotune

Any help or suggestions anyone would have would be appreciated. Really praying i can get this working for miatas at MRLS... otherwise not sure what I'm going to do.

The firmware on your ECU has been erased. I've seen this when either:
(1) using a poor quality USB>Serial adapter, generally those with a Prolilfic brand chipset. The USB adapter garbles transmission and sends garbage to the ECU.
(2) sometimes if the ECU takes a really big hit, like wiring an ignition coil to an input

Reload firmware (with the boot jumper in place), and I suspect everything will come back to life.

this worked. I was able to reflash the firmware and I now have connectivity to the ECU. I uploaded my old tune and I can properly hear the fuel pump priming when i turn the ignition on. The car won't fire up and it seems like it's not getting spark. I put my timing light on and cranked it over and no dice on the spark.

A buddy mentioned some times these things will fry coils when you flash firmware? any truth to that?