Welcome aboard the Forum, you have arrived at the best Z Forum on the Web, help and advice always available here.
As our membership is Worldwide its a good idea to update your user details with your location and model of your car, it assists us in answering your questions.
You could also add a signature to show these detail so they appear in all your future posts.
If you are lucky you might be close to one of the enthusiast run Zed Sheds where members meet up and do jobs on each others cars.
If your new to OBD2 you will want to bolster your toolbox with a decent Code Scanner, bound to need one sooner or later.
I can reccomend a Creator 310+ as a good all round scanner and easy to use.
If you want to go the Laptop route then find yourself a Windows laptop running Windows 7 or above and
purchase BMW Scanner 1.4 available on ebay for little cost, it comes with its Interface, cable and software on a usb stick, you will need a 16pin to 20 pin cable changer to plug
these diagnostics in to the under bonnet diagnostic plug (Pac-man socket) to read all modules on the car.
If yours has a 16pin obd2 socket under the steering wheel inside the car that will only read the engine and transmission modules,
the Pac-man socket reads all modules. If you get hooked on Diagnostics you may want to have a go with BMW software, INPA, NCS Expert, Winkpf and DIS, these can be problematic setting up but usually due to configering the right drive and usb settings. Help usually forthcomming on the Forum if you run into install problems.