Mach 3 upgrade....

[CRFultz]

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I fired up my system yesterday to do some work, everything booted up and the table worked great.
i decided to upgrade to Mach 3, went through the whole setup, rebooted, ocx test looked great, set up my ports and pins per the soundlogix B/O board......went to tune my motors...nothing.
Checked jog settings ...everything good there....the breakout board LEDs for the dir and step showed no activity, (the step usually dims when jogging).
So after going back and rechecking everything I decided that the upgrade was not for me....went back and booted up Mach 2 and now it has the same thing...no activity on the dir / step LEDs and the charge pump (pin 17) will not fire the scr (output 4) to turn on my drives.
After I pulled all my hair out, I loaded Mach 2 on my laptop and connected it to the breakout board, with a NEW profile everything worked like it was supposed to. So, there is something haywire with my computer but I can't figure it out. I uninstalled Mach 3 and Mach 2 and then reinstalled Mach 2 using my old XML profile. Same results.
My question is this...
could the old profile for Mach 2 have gotton corrupted somehow?
I have a few Pentium boards laying around, so i was about to swap the computer board out, but I thought i would ask the experts there opinion on this problem first.
Any ideals what went wrong?
Thanks
Chuck

[CRFultz]

I guess i kinda answered my own question....I deleated my profile from the mach dir...and made a new one ..same thing...no charge pump when i hit reset...guess my motherboard as gone south

[CRFultz]

Something else...I just booted it up again and I got a screen saying that "overclocking has failed...press F2 to load default".
First time I ever saw that one...didn't know my asus board was overclocked to begin with.....the board is a year old so it's time was probably up.....only question now is do I upgrade to Mach 3?

[ger21]

The settup is differenent between Mach2 and Mach3, so you can't just transfer the settings. And Mach3 has a lot more features.

[strat]

another fast thought is if it was showing change to your bios for the overclock did it change the setting for your port

[CRFultz]

Originally Posted by ger21 The settup is differenent between Mach2 and Mach3, so you can't just transfer the settings. And Mach3 has a lot more features.

Hey Gerry,
naw..when i tried the mach 3 it was with a whole new profile / setup...I used the xml file from Bob's website so i don't think that was a issue...
Chuck

[CRFultz]

Originally Posted by strat another fast thought is if it was showing change to your bios for the overclock did it change the setting for your port

I'm gonna go check....what should I look for?...I've never made any changes in the setup so I'm not sure what it should be...any ideals? It's a ASUS p4

[HayTay]

Following Strat's train of thought, maybe the (usually lithium coin cell) battery on the motherboard that enables your BIOS settings to be maintained when the PC is unplugged has died. Make sure it is seated properly if it is in a battery holder. You may want to purchase a new one and try it before going to the bother of replacing the motherboard. It's cheaper and less work. Either way your BIOS settings will have to be set back to their original values (drives, ports, clock speed, etc.).

Some coin cell batteries are actually soldered to the motherboard. Depending on how brave you are, you probably wouldn't want to fool around replacing the battery on this type. You would have to pull the MB anyway, and if you're going to do that you might as well put in another board. You wanted to upgrade your system anyway, right?

Rotsa Ruck,

HayTay

[strat]

get into your bios not real sure what the asus has in it but once in look for something with integrated peripherals or such you should see something for the onboard par. port and something for the mode make sure the port addy is set to the one you want to use and then try the different mode settings i usally get by with the combo setting some have had probs withthat so thats just kinda try and see which work i use the combo myself ecp+epp

[CRFultz]

In setup I found a setting for parallel port...it shows a address of 378.
Parallel port mode is normal
...should this be ...bi-dir
or EPP
or ECP
parallel port IRQ is IRQ7

[CRFultz]

Originally Posted by strat get into your bios not real sure what the asus has in it but once in look for something with integrated peripherals or such you should see something for the onboard par. port and something for the mode make sure the port addy is set to the one you want to use and then try the different mode settings i usally get by with the combo setting some have had probs withthat so thats just kinda try and see which work i use the combo myself ecp+epp

it will only let me choose one

[strat]

try the bi -dir first your sending signals out for control and getting signals back for limits and such if thats no good go with the epp ecp