BMW M4 GT3 wheel update to V9 by not using the QR2 and QR2 link cable
Howard Lo
Member
After a year of trying I finally has the time to actually "HACK" the way to update my $1500 wheel to the latest version V9 and it is without any help from Fanatec tech people. They are simply just don't understand don't care about their customer.
The problem we have is the USB connection failure like this "Error: UsbHidPeripheral() cannot open USB HID device (vid=0x15a2, pid=0x0073, sn=)."
Like others, I have the M4 wheel with the original QR1 base and link cable, then update to the QR2 and when V9 firmware is out I was told to update my wheel using the old QR1 link cable. Good thing I didn't throw the old QR1 adaptor away or sell it, give it away. I open it up and install the QR1 adaptor back on the M4 wheel by using only 1 screw. So it can be easily swapping the QR2 and QR1 adaptor in order to "hack" the fanatec control panel firmware update.
Uninstall the latest 464 fanatec control panel firmware, After uninstall, restart the PC. This is the key step, download and install the old 452 firmware. It must be the 452 version because that was the version that has the original released V9 firmware for the M4 wheel. See the firmware link below.
After window restart, mount the wheel on the base and turn on the fanatec control panel. It will detech your wheel need the update to V9. Unmount the wheel and install the old QR1 adaptor and use the old QR1 link cabler and do the standard update thing (press and hold the back button, then plug in the USB cable to the computer). It should promt you to the update and link connection sucessful. Press the "refresh firmware" and that should update to the V9.
As crazy as that, you can only do that 1 time. After the update, you will get the same old USB connection failure notice but after that, you should update the Fanatec firmware back to the latest 464 version and you should be able to see your wheel are all good to the latest firmware.
I am almost 99% sure if there is a V10 update, this methord will NOT work because they are going to use the update with the newer QR2 cable and Fanatec will definitley forget about us who bought the wheel years ago was coming with the old QR1 and QR1 link cable. But all and all, please try to update this to V9 and hope for the best. I am pretty sure this V9 update probably didn't update anything crittical or important nor we can tell what was the change but for $1600 USD I don't know why we are the one that has less support nor they would give us any solution for a simple update like this....
Comments
Contact support for QR2 update cable. They will send you one. I tried it once and they sent it to me right away, no questions asked.