I swapped PC's out so I could have enough Ram and Processor speed to run my new Cad progam. Took the Parallel port controller card out of my old one and its hard drive to slave it so all my files wouldnt be lost. Both are running windows XP. The mill ran fine before hand so thats why its hard for me to understand. Now with the same exact Mach 3 (already setup exactly like before) when I try to do anything that involves moving the steppers (jogging or running a file) they will shake the handwheels a few times and start this high pitch whining and making somekind of starwars robot (or something) sounds. The DRO's run up and down but the motors will not turn. I took the Z off and its the same installed or free. Under the diagnostics tap when jogging the jog lights dont come on. Speeding up or slowing down the motors doesent seem to matter either. Is this sounding like a Mach error and I need to purge it and download a new one or more serious issues? I have unhooked everything else and disabled it so be sure something else wasent interfearing also. Thanks in advance.
Rick

Put the original back the way it was. Network the new one to the Mach3 PC which already worked. The new bloated CAD program probably won't work too well at the same time as Mach3.
For a single monitor, keyboard and mouse, use a KVM (Keyboard,Monitor,Mouse) switch. It might be better to leave a separate keyboard for Mach3 because it might not like losing it's keyboard, and safety issues. I changed PC's to get a faster bigger ram PC working and had no end of problems due to subtle changes in the LPT port characteristics.

I just used the hard drive out of the old computer after I purged all the files except mach. With the old one( dinosaur) a 366 anytime alot was going on in mach it really slowed mach down and it wouldnt support the Cad program at all anyway. I usually only try to run 1 application at a time when possible. The Mach file is the exact same file as the one that worked. 2 pc's I really cant do due to space issues, my workshop is SMALL.

Did you make sure the address of the parallel card is the same in the new machine as it had been assigned in the previous computer?

Am I understanding that you took the HD from the first computer and just started running the XP installed on it on the new machine? If so, I'm surprised it even booted correctly - XP won't like mass changes like that. I've managed to do it a couple times, but most times it's too much.

On the new PC, with the Mach that doesn't work.

Look in the folder that mach is in and double click on Drivertest.exe.

That should help you determine if the PC is up to the task. I know my laptop wasn't and I could see why after that.

did you "INSTALL" mach to the new pc? and then copy your old mach 3 folder over the newly installed mach 3 folder. It needs to install the drivers.

Yes checked and made sure the parallel port addy is correct. Tried it on all 3 ports and same mess with the motors.

On the HD slaved to the new one the only thing left is Mach. You can have 2 different OS on slaved HD's or the same OS on both if one is a restore only drive, but yeah 2 XPs on slaved drives really freaks it out. Most of the time the Bios crashes frequently. All windows components have been removed from the slave drive.

I have tried redownloading Mach onto the Primary C: drive and just taking the info from the other to reset the config by but during the download it pulled the settings from the D: HD to the new program on C:.

I have ran the driver test and it went through it with no errors shown. It didnt activate the motors if it was supposed to though.

I guess I will try writing down my settings then erasing everything on Mach and starting over. If anything should work that should. Just figured maybe I was missing something simple. Thanks for everyones help and inputs. I'll post if that fixes it if not it may be time for a new computer this one may develop some added vent holes in it.
Rick

Ok now I am really mixed up and peeved (keeping it PG). Totally removed all Cad, Mach and everything that has to do with the machine or software. Removed the slave hard drive. Reloaded the newest version of Mach from machsupport. Only setup the default port (port 1, 378) Enabled X axis only step 3 dir 2. step active low, same as the working setup was. Set the motor speed at 30 and accel to 20 (was 70 and 50 before). The stepper will move somewhat, sounds really notchy, grinding like gears out of mesh. Under the Diag. screen the first 8 pins show active ( not sure if its normal). I ran the Config check in the Mach files says everything OK. Done driver test cpu speed says 1526 and the pulse per sec jumps around all over the place. It hovers mainly between 1000-2000. I did see 182 and 20635 come up though. Under the Get Port Address it comes up with LPT1 is H9800, LPT2 is H378 and LPT3 is 9000. In reality LPT1 is 378, LPT2 is 9000 and LPT3 is 9800 (WTF??) Under the program, device manager it shows it the way I use it, I have yet to figure out how exactly the feature on Mach gets its info or if it can be changed, maybe thats the issue.

I also unhooked any other boards, cables, power supplys that were not to be used to run the driver board. Any cables usb, parallel, speakers on the computer were unhooked also. My Wireless PCI card was disabled and the antenna unhooked. Anything in the workshop that could emit EM, RF or any type of signal was unhooked or powered down. I think I have covered all my bases for interferance causing issues. I dont know. I may dump Windows again and try that but I dont really see what that would have to do with.
May be time for a new computer altogether or a driver board. May try running it through my laptop to rule out driver issues, since the old PC's HD is wiped now. If anybody thinks of anything else to try PLEASE let me know. Thanks again.

I would suggest reseting your PCs defaults in the bios, I would also suggest disabling any power saving software or settings within windows.

Other than that, what did you use the PC for before the change. Games, etc, etc. Is there anything that you have "tweaked" to make something else perform better?

The Bios is config at default from Asus. It was originially built for my wifes mom to do transcription on. It started action stupid and not allowing the video side of the board to run so I set her up another one. This one ended up being a Power supply not resetting so it wouldnt supply power to all the pins on the board and crashed the Bios. Dumped everything, put in another power supply and ran it through its paces and worked great. Just wont let mach 3 work for some reason. Its funny that an old Pentium 2 366 that I put XP on just to test the drivers first will run it and this faster, stronger wont let it act right. The Power supply could have had some effect on that side of the board though it uses the same power traces as the video output. I dont know.

Motherboard problem. I guess when the power supply went it hurt the board somewhere. I have changed the the Bios of the system around and tried to get the onboard or either of the parallel ports to work one stepper no go all the same. Hook up my old laptop after I had to install XP on it and it runs the motors fine. Guess its time to build a new one. Maybe a new 4 core AMD Phenom and 8gb of ram would make it work. LOL