Monday, March 19, 2007

DKU-5 vs CA-42 Data Cable

Hello all, now i want to explain the differences between Nokia DKU-5 and CA-42 data cable. Sometime we are confusing to choose a data cable for our Nokia Phone. There are DKU-5 and CA-42 data cable. I hope this article helping you who are decided to buy a Nokia data cable.

DKU-5

DKU-5 has a chip in it to emulate a serial port through the USB connector. This is for phones without native USB connectivity. DKU-5 is used for models without external memory (6100, 3100, 3120, 3200, 3220, 6610, 7210, 7250, 68xx, 6200, 6220).

CA-42

CA-42 is a replacement cable for DKU-5 cable. Some phones are compatible with both of them, some with just CA-42.

The main differences are three :
  1. The CA-42 cable consumes less power than the DKU-5 when it is idle.
  2. The CA-42 cable is not detected by the PC unless the phone is connected to the other end.
  3. The CA-42 cable can be also used in Operating Systems other than Windows 98/2K/XP, such as Windows CE, Linux and Mac.

5 comments:

Lee said...

Thanks for this info. If the CA-42 is not detected by the computer without the phone connected, could I therefore conclude that the CA-42 labeled cable that I'm using is a knockoff rather than a real Nokia?

Windows beeps when I insert the USB cable, and the Found New Hardware icon in the system tray gives a pop-up label of "USB-UART Controller"

The Nokia folks on the phone have told me that because the cable doesn't say "Made in Thailand" it won't work, and I should buy a new one. I'm a bit skeptical of their advice.

Thanks!

Asep Andria I.W., ST. said...

Bought the original one Nokia data cable is a recommended advice for common user who want to access their Nokia phone from the PC using a software like Nokia PC Suite.

For a software developer, it's recommended that do not bought the original data cable for Nokia phone. For an open source sms gateway like gnokii the original data cable won't work.

Some people experienced a problem accessing the internet when using DKU-5 as their data cable. And because of this Nokia releases the replacement for the old data cable and now it's called CA-42 data cable.

USB-UART Controller is manufactured by ArkMicroChips whose have the Vendor ID 0x6547 and Product ID 0x0232.

My advice is first try to following the manual from Nokia to installing the USB driver and make sure that driver is working. I've USB-UART Controller from ArkMicroChips and it's working both on Windows and Linux.

Anonymous said...

I have an original CA-42 "Made in Thailand" unafortunately it's not detected unles the phone is atached, if someone could figure how to overcome this for using it as generic usb-uart coverter I'll be happy (Perhaps some wire bridging at the phone end must be in place). Thanks

Peter said...

Rotond and others. Have you succeded to detect the CA-42 cable without using the phone. I am trying right now with a CA-42 cable (Made in Thailand), but since I don't own a Nokia phone I am struggling to get it connected to a COM-port

Pls, let me know if you have any hints.
thx. Peter

Anonymous said...

I have a problem with my dku-5 cable to connect to internet. My notebook is acer amd turion x2 64. Can ca-42 cable replace my dku-5 in order to able to connect to internet