Strange Mach3 issues - Asus Laptop

[CarbonKevin]

Hey all!  I'm trying to get Mach 3 working with a SmoothStepper and a Gecko G540.

My laptop is an Asus M50VM.  2.53 Ghz quad-core, 3gb ram, Nvidia Geforece 9600 M GS graphics, XP Pro SP3.  Not a bad system, really.

The first issue - I can use the jog control panel (both onscreen and with a keyboard) to move the machine.  No problems there, at all.

When I try to enter G code manually, nothing happens.  

If I try to come up with a toolpanth via the wizard, or with a file from LazyCam, the machine will "appear" to run for a few seconds, then comes up with "The smoothstepper ran out of data" or something to that effect.

Another strange issue - sometimes, when I'm running a wizard, and hit "post", nothing shows up in the path preview window, then when I go back to the main screen, a windows with "generating toolpath" comes up, but the progress bar never moves, it just sits, forever.

I've gone into the control panel and disabled Windows' ability to disable power to ports.

I've tried installing the smothstepper driver, plugin, and Mach3 onto a borrowed laptop, and it worked immediately - no problems.  I used the same g540b XML file.

Any help would be much appreciated, thanks!

[CarbonKevin]

Update - on my 4th full uninstall and resinstall, I've got it working.  I think the only thing different this time around was using the older SmothStepper USB driver.

New question, however.  If I have to stop a G-Code program partway in, and want to send the machine to (0,0,0), I hit "GOTO ZERO".  Trouble is, it takes whatever co-ordinates the machine is currently at, and goes to precisely half that number.  So, if it were at (6,6,6), it would go to (3,3,3) and stop.  So I'd hit it again, this time, it goes to (1.5,1.5,1.5)  And so forth, until it finally is at a near-zero number. 

Any clue what would cause THAT?

Thanks again!

[Jeff_Birt]

You were using the old driver or old plug-in? The new plug-in requires the latest version of Mach to work properly. The other possibility I can think of is that you may have had another device installed that uses the FTDI USB chip. Different version of the FTDI driver can conflict and cause all sort of funny issues.

[CarbonKevin]

I'm using the latest SmoothStepper plugin, the second newest SmoothStepper driver (2.04.06), and the newest demo release of Mach3.

Any ideas at all on the Goto Zero issue?  Thanks!

[Jeff_Birt]

Nope have not seen the Goto Zero problem, I'll have to see if I can reproduce it here.