Welcome to the SeeMeCNC Community

Currently I am having issues with Mach 3. Everything seems to load up fine when launching Mach, but the steppers do not move when jogged. Here is what I have done so far

I first read the Mach 3 manual and then proceeded with the installation

1. Installed Windows 7 32 bit on a spare PC I had at home
2. Installed the Parallel Card drivers
3. Installed Mach 3
4. Executed the registry fix for Vista/win 7
5. Ran the Driver Test - Then rebooted
6. Ran the driver test again - according to it the system is performing excellent
7. Download the Mach Profiles from the forum.
8. Checked the settings in each tab and made sure they matched.
9. Made sure the machine is Reset in Mach.

Now, the weird part is when I open the properties for my parallel card in device manager, the resources tab is missing. I have tried re-installing the drivers but still no luck. I eventually downloaded an app called listio to find the I/O range address for my card. It returned about 6 results (3 Com and 3 Lpt). I tried each of them in the Ports and Pins config but I could not get the steppers to work.

My next attempt is to install xp and try it again. Has anyone else had an issue like this?

I don't use parallel ports or MACH3 but it sounds like Windows 7 is not allowing direct hardware access to the card. The tell tale sign is the fact that there are no resources assigned to the card (DMA, port address, IRQ, etc.) I would definitely try Windows XP, but I would double check to make sure the parallel port card is supported or in some motherboard manufactures cases an actual parallel port and not an emulation.

Second I would double check your settings in the BIOS (if this is one that is built on board) to be set to ECP+EPP, I remember others in the past having problems with this.

Hi midget214,
The problem could be setting the parallel port (off board). To solve this problem I tried to use a dot matrix printer and check if it works. The dot matrix printer ran successfully. But, I think it might be conflicting with some other operating system (Windows XP) or Mach3 settings. I used another computer with Windows XP parallel port (on board) and the result was the same. I'll install Windows 7 and Windows XP again. I'll post the results once completed.

Thanks for the info. I am busy installing XP now. (Holding thumbs everything goes well)
Will keep you guys updated

While Im waiting for the installation to complete, I want to set my thermostat so long. The IC voltage for PLA should be between 2.5 and 2.8 from what I have read. Now to read this, I need to connect a multimeter to Pin 11 and Pin 12 Right? (Pin 11 is ground as far as I know? )

Ok, so I have found the issue. For some reason the PC I used does not pick up the parallel card properly. I took out the hard drive from the other pc and moved the parallel card and hard drive to my main pc. Booted xp, and resources tab became available after re-installing the drivers. So I guess for now i will need to find a way to dual boot between the 2 hard drives

its not so hard, put both drives on the computer . try this http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Boo ... zard.shtml use the command "active" on both drives installed and when you restart you can choose between them