Alpine’s F#1 Status Head Unit and processor are hands down the best I have used in a car. They are flexible, reliable easy to use. Until it comes to adjusting the units.

You basically have two choices when making adjustments, using the head unit or a computer. Jeff Smith prefers the first method if you have a video monitor connected. It tends to be in real time and works well. But if you don’t have a monitor, that method is horrible. It takes days to make adjustments and heaven forbid you want to adjust volume or change tracks, etc. The PC method is the one I prefer, but until recently my success rate on the PC has been about 30%. (Meaning 70% of the time it fails..) And I know talking to other F#1 owners, they have similar stories to tell.

In the H900, the precursor to the H990 had an RS232 port, which is also called a COM port. They are increasingly possible to find on common laptops. So for the H990, alpine outfitted the processor with an USB port. But behind the scenes, they left the RS232 plumbing there. (Which in my opinion is where all of the problems in getting the unit to work are.)

After a little poking around, they use technology from FTDI who are specialists in converting legacy peripherals to Universal Serial Bus (USB).  They utilize two drivers, a Virtual COM Port and a Direct Driver, both provided by FTDI.

So with all of that rambling on, here are the directions on how to successfully install H990 on BOTH Vista and XP. The drivers here do NOT work on 64 bit machines, so if you have one of them, these won’t work…

1. Copy the Contents of the H990 CD to your hard drive.
2. Delete all of the files and folders except the one called setup_English
3. In the same directory, create a directory called New Drivers.
4. In New Drivers, create two sub directories again. One called D2XX and one called VCP.
5. Download Version 2.04.14 from the FTDI Website for the D2XX Driver. Copy that file to the D2XX Directory. http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/D2XX.htm is the download location. Run the file after it is downloaded to extract all of the contents.
6. Download Version 2.04.14 from the FTDI Website for the VCP Driver. Copy that file to the VCP Directory. http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm is the download location. Run the file after it is downloaded to extract all of the contents.
7. With the H990 off, plug in the USB Port to the Computer and the H990. Turn on the H990.
8. It will now find your device and look for drivers. Select Advanced and the point Windows to the D2XX Directory First. After the D2XX Driver is installed, it will find another device. With that device, select the VCP Directory.
9. These are NOT signed drivers, so Windows will alert you to that. Click Install when it warns you.
10. Run Setup from the english_Setup directory.
11. When the Setup has finished and the H990’s welcome screen comes up, select the highest COM Number Available. (i.e., COM 5, or there about…)

You should now have a fully functioning copy of the F#1 Software working on your laptop.