Newbie- Computer and Operating System Choice

[kanton]

Soon I will be attempting to use Mach3 to control a Taig CNC mill with a Gecko G540 based controller system. I have a choice of two computers to accomplish this. The first is a Compaq Presario 6300US Desktop PC with a 1.4 GHz Celeron processor and 512MB RAM. The second I built with an Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Conroe 1.86GHz processor and 3GB RAM. Both have one motherboard based parallel port. I realize that the Compaq is by far the weaker system but I would prefer to use it if it is adequate as the other system has many other uses.

For an operating system I can choose between Windows 2000 Professional and Windows XP Professional. Which is the easiest to set up Mach3 with and which is the most reliable?

Any other tips or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[dertsap]

the compaq will be plenty for running mach
I used a 1.4 ghz for a long time and it worked great
i may be wrong but i believe mach3 was designed for xp , not sure how it would be on win2000

[kanton]

dertsap,

I installed W2K, SP4 then Mach3. It seems to work OK.

[kanton]

Well it does work, sort of. It did not work at all at first because the parallel port was not in EPP mode. For those of you thinking of using a Compaq Presario 6300US holding down the F10 button on boot gets you into the bios to change this.

After this fix, I got the axes to jog, sort of. When I try the Y- the mill does Z+. When I try the Z- the mill does Y+. When I try the 4+ the mill does X-. The X jogs do nothing. How do I correct this? Also, how do I set the limits on axis travel?

Thanks again for your help.

[kanton]

I found the problem. I stupidly plugged the stepper cables into the wrong plugs on the Gecko G540. How do I set the limits on axis travel?