I have a 3206 which runs great if I can get it started... the trouble is getting it started!
The start sequence I use is:
1. Power the wall wart for the 3206 (and make sure the power connector is connected)
2. Start my laptop computer, which has PicoFull_r5_16_2.exe installed on it
3. Plug in the USB cable to the laptop. I hear the standard Windows tones when a USB device is plugged in. The first time after the software was installed I had to go through the installation procedure. I only did this once after installing the software.
4. Start the program. At this point it starts the progress bar on the bottom of the start-up splash screen and gets to about 3/4 through and then displays a message that it can't find the hardware. Several disconnects, power-downs, power-ups, reconnects, etc. and it finally recognizes the hardware and the program runs fine.
Could you uninstall the software and install version R5.18.0 (http://www.picotech.com/software.html) to see if that solves the problem. Please also download and install PicoScope 6 which can co-exist with PicoScope 5, but may not used at the same time for a single product.
I downloaded the new versions, per your suggestion. While version r5_18_0 seemed to respond similar to r5_16_2, version r6_0_12 had a much better algorithm for starting. I appears it drops all devices on the USB bus first, and then enumerates them one at a time. When I used this version, it found my scope the first time... every time!
Thanks very much for the pointer.
BTW... The scope is phenomenal once it starts! The multiple pages of trace history in version r6_0_12 is very useful, also.
I had the same problem. I was using driver R.25 and R.27 on W2k and XP operating systems. In general, I find that W2k has alot more problems with picoscope3206 than XP does.
I upgraded my w2k computer to use R6.0.13 and got it to work, but not at first. I had to successfully communicate with the device using the XP machine first.
For some reason, once the device stops talking it really goes dead - as if the power isn't even on. We have had a problem with picoscope3206 connecting after every reboot. Hopefully this new driver will be more stable than the previous one.