I'm a registered user of Mach3 (v3.043.022), and have used it successfully to drive my CNC3040. But till now I've been using a desktop running WinXP. I wanted to get the desktop out of my dirty workshop environment, and use a notebook PC instead, which I could easily remove from the workshop when not needed.
My wife uses an HP/Compaq NW8000 (with Win2k), and I tested that successfully with Mach3, and it drove the CNC correctly. But she wants to hang on to it, so I bought another (second-hand) HP/Compaq NX6120, which also has a parallel port. I've loaded Win2k on that too.
After installing Mach3 on it (with the obligatory reboot), and installing the port driver manually, the Driver Test program runs, but after 'taking over' the parallel port, shows no activity (blank, white) in the Timer Variations window, and 0% (also blank) in the Pulse Rating indicator (see screen dump). I've run it several times, including after a further reboot, but no change.
If I click the Start Timer button, nothing seems to happen. If I click the Stop Timer button some seconds later, nothing seems to happen. If I then click Start Timer again, an error box pops up saying 'Timer not counting'.
In case this was a problem only with the Driver Test display, I hooked this PC up to the CNC, but Mach3 failed to drive anything, and pressing the cursor keys didn't even change the displayed coordinates.
Can anyone offer advice on how I might fix this problem? As a last resort I could maybe swap this notebook with my wife's, but there are hassles involved with that too. :-(
Daniel
(Gerroa, Australia)