Sony Ericsson z500a – PC Data Cable, Free Software Downloads, USB Connectivity Problems

Technology

as i’ve mentioned before my latest cell phone has camera and video recording capabilities. it’s a Sony Ericsson z500a. i ordered an $9 USB cable so that I can download/upload media (pics, vids, mp3’s, etc). i have a small complaint… it took way too long to get connected. i downloaded a couple of free applications from Sony Ericsson (File Manager & Sound Editor) and figured that installed that software would be all I needed… and of course i was wrong. i had already installed (thought I did) the USB driver info that came on a CD with the cable i ordered. but nothing seemed to indicate a connection to my phone. so… for all those who may have similar problems (and for my own archival purposes) here are the steps necessary (for me anyhow) to connect my phone to my PC (WinXP).

Items Needed: 1 DCU-11 Data Cable

Software Needed:
– File Manager
– Mobile Phone Monitor
– USB Driver that comes with your USB cable (DCU-11)

Steps:
1. Install Mobile Phone Monitor
2. Install File Manager
3. Install USB driver (should come with your USB cable)
4. Make sure MPM (Mobile Phone Monitor) is installed. – Check for existence of “Phone Monitor Options” in the Control Panel (Windows).
5. Make sure the correct COM ports are activated!
– Go in the Control Panel -> “Phone Monitor Options” -> “Com Ports” (tab). There, you will find a list of COM ports available on the computer. Choose the COM port on which your phone is connected, and press the “Enable” button.
– If you don’t know which COM port the phone is connected on, you can find out as follows. If you use:
Serial Cable: Check the label on the port you plugged the cable in. It should be marked “Com 1” or “Com 2”, usually PCs don’t have more then 2 COM ports, so chances are it’s either 1 or 2
USB Cable: Check in the device manager (Windows) which COM port is used for the serial port emulation. (Look under “ports”)
Infrared: There is own applet in Control Panel for infrared. COM port used by IR is reported there. It is very often COM 2…
BlueTooth: When you open a “Serial Port” connection to the phone, the COM port used will be reported to you.

that’s all i got for you… seems simple enough right… well enjoy cause it took me a while to get it right. i hope this helps.

enjoy your phone… i’ll be enjoying mine.

btw, i’ve linked to pages that should lead to the needed files, however for my sake i’ve archived my files on my server. so, if u are having trouble finding the files u can try mine (they may not be the most recent versions by the time u download them… but better than nothing).

sorry, but i’ve removed the files from my server, since becoming an iPhone owner i don’t personally have use for the files and hopefully the links i’ve provided via Sony Ericsson well help you out!

12 thoughts on “Sony Ericsson z500a – PC Data Cable, Free Software Downloads, USB Connectivity Problems”

  1. Here is the problem.

    When you buy third party cables, you are bound to run into problems. Agreed that these cables cost about 10-20% of the same cable bought from the store, but heres the difference. Many times one may go nuts trying to understand “I am trying to install a DCU11 driver but it doesn’t work”. The interface (eg. DCU11, DKU2, DKU5, etc) may be the same but the UART controller inside the cable is usually different.

    In absence of the original part, I would recommend going the bluetooth route. There are a couple of things that cannot be done via a BT conxn, namely firmware upgrades and hardware level stuff like that.

    I have always used a software called Mobile Master (http://www.mobile-master.com/) which has worked for all of my Nokia and SE phones. They may take a while to come out with an updated driver for the commandset of a new phone, but their stuff is good and stable.

    Advice: Stay away from SE phones for the next year or two. They have a few drawbacks:
    1. Third party power adapters royally f**k the power recepticle up. Result, in a few months, the contacts become loose and then charging is uncertain. ME = Two time victim. Never understood why my phone wasn’t charging using power accessories bought via ebay and the like.
    2. Even today, most SE phones are still using a proprietary OS. This makes knowledge of the phone difficult to come by in other users and software is not as freely available.

    PS: Flip phones suck. Period.

  2. hey hey KC, glad to hear from ya!! thanks for your input, as usual thorough and insightful.

    btw, i’m curious if you’re still working for Micro$oft?? i hope life’s treating you good these days either way.

  3. Hey, i bought the data cable from the cingular wireless store. it didn’t come with a cd. they told me i could ‘just google it’ and it would come up. 3-4 hours in i find your page and i’m downloading file manager. 34MB. I tried downloading the sync program earlier, also 30 something MB. if this doesn’t work, I don’t know.

    The whole reason for this, is our Z500a got screwed up- when you plugged it into the factory a/c charger, it jsut kept blinking “optimizing.” We took it into the store a couple of times, finally called warranty servie and they sent us a replacement. Guess what? it’s screwed up too. and now the old phone’s bracked where you insert the SIM is all screwed up because I have fat fingers. So now I have two phones, neither of which works all that well. Questionable battery life. And more than 4 hours after paying 25+ dollars for a stupid USB cable so I could try to save the 107 pictures my wife took with the camera phone… well… I’ve still got nothing.

    Thanks for letting me vent.

  4. hey matthew, i’m sorry to hear your woes… u gotta love cingular, usb cable prices and sony erricson flip phones huh.

    i hope my software, links and instructions help you out!

  5. WOW! I was having the EXACT same problem and I simply couldn’t figure it out. I kept thinking there was something on my phone I needed to configure or something. Your steps solved it! Thanks a million!

    Sarah

  8. I followed your steps, but unfortunately it was to no avail. It still doesn’t recognize my phone…when i go under the myphones icon, it just simply says “not connected”. do you have any other tips? my warranty replacement phone is coming this week so i need to extract some of the pics movies, and ringtones if possible

    -denver

  11. Buster

    Your rational discussion helped a great deal. After following your logic, and changing the ID in the suscom.inf file to read what my dcu-11 cable’s ID was (getting that from the device manager) what remained took me about two hours to figure out: namely, that I had to create, yes – create a com port, before I could liNK the dcu-11 to it!! MANY COMPUTERS ARE SHIPPED TODAY WITHOUT COM PORTS – i BOUGHT THE COMPAQ SR 1710NX FOR $400 AND CHANGE. iT HAS NO FLOPPY AND NO COM PORTS!! What remains is the issue of baud rates, (and RTS, and DTS for which I have found no control in win XP device manager).

    The mobile Monitor works nicely to link to the correct com port. Once that was done, I directed the add hardware manager to re-install susteen.inf et al and I have my dcu-11 where it belongs in the LPT and Com port section of Device manager.

    The troubleshooting button does nothing visible. The file Manager apparently does nothing visible. I have been working with FMA which is helpful but has no diagnostics. Any ideas would be helpful. I am very close to the solution, but stuck in limbo. I have connection but no recongition ==> no synching nor asynching.

    Joel

  12. I’m looking for a good Usb data cable for my Z500a ericsson flip, my goal is only to put some of the mp3 i made ( i have a band ) on my cellphone, and i dunno wich would be the nicest cable for this job.
    thx for letting me know!

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