**Moved to this forum as I realized I may have posted in the wrong area - apologies**

I am trying to absorb so much new material here and want to learn all this. I have been trying to setup the Nefmoto software and such on the PC and and not having any luck connecting the the car. (B6 1.8t). I am using a OBDLink cable. Nefmoto sees the cable and it has the 235R chip as displayed when you hover over the device drop down menu. Here is an example https://www.mo-co-so.com/OBDLink-Scan-Tool-Universal-OBD-II-327-Interface-p/mcs-sca-lnk-bt.htm. It reads the car with the ProScan software no problem. Nefmoto shows that the device is compatible with the premium version and shows a ChipID. I tried the FTDI drivers. I read that the cable needs to be in 'dumb mode' but don't really understand how to do it without being in the VCDS software itself. NefMoto always says something about echos and such. Is there another way or am I wasting my time? I am trying to use the cables that I already have. If nothing works, so be it, but I just want to make sure I am doing this right. Any insight? Thank you!

Thank you for the reply. I'll look into what a bench setup entails.

The VCDS cables should be pretty fool proof then? I'll try a proper known good cable.
What do you suggest for a cable?