Not to sure how to start this but.  I have been having a hell of a time trying to set up my machine iv looked at vids spent hrs reading and trying all sorts of things to get this machine going the way it should I'm not talking machining just homing ,limits , and spindle control and up till now with not much gain for my effort. 

So i am know putting my problems down to the PC I'm trying to use. Its a Dell one of them desk top ones you see in office's with the screen sat on top and as we know Dell can do cheap pc's because they miss bits out of them to keep the price done. So iv come round to the idea I'm having problems because the PC I'm trying to use has not got a full set of marbles as in the port has only got the bare min of bits to make it work say a printer and nothing more what with it being a office PC it would of been on a network and not need the full port. would any of you say this holds any water before i go down the route of a diffrent PC I'm not willing to try my home PC as it a top line game machine and i don't want it in the workshop wear any thing could go wrong i can build a fast PC but for sure don't know much else ??

what's the machine spec on the old Dell? mine is a no-name 900MHz PC that was due for the bin years ago. If yours is anything like a standard PC is should work ok. If it has a parallel port it should work like one. Are you using a breakout board to attach the machine to the computer? This is often a good way forward in order to get a strong signal out and tolerate gummy machine wires. In short we need more information.

If your port is really rubbish you can get PCI parallel port cards for not much. mine use a Moschip chipset and work very well.

What DEll model? ON board graphics?
I have a Optiplex GX520 which requires using a SmoothStepper to run my machines.
RICH 

My very old Dell GX150 (PIII, 1Ghz) works great. Spare motherboards with CPU's are $20 on Ebay.

Rich, have you tried disabling ACPI in the bios BEFORE installing windows?

It is really pot luck whether or not a particular PC will work well with the parallel port driver. I've used a Dell GX270 before with Mach. From the limited description given in your post it is hard to tell if the problem is associated with the PC or with how you have Mach configured.

Jeff,
I think i tried everything know to man! The signal out of the port has ringing on the signal that you actualy get multiple pulses to the drives. The steppers have the sound of someone tapping them with a mallet and axis speed is limited to about 5-7 ipm. New pc  120ipm, no problem. BTW, with SS that pc is fine,but, the SS dosen't have
----------- remember my promise! 
RICH

Rich, I was talking about the OP's settings. He mentioned something about not being able to get his limits etc set up and working.

Sorry i don't have the specs to hand at the min as I'm away from the work shop but i do now its is very good spec and over the top for what i need.. So to day iv orded a card to go in it just to try and yes I'm all so using a graphic card and not on bored but it is a pci slot one not agp will this make any difference ?  i really am starting to lose hart in this at the min