I did a search for information on a fix for this but I'm still confused. Is there a board I can buy now?
Will this Single Port Parallel Port PCI Card work? http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/computer_parallel-port.html#1np
Hairball

Is your computer a laptop or a Desktop computer?

Whacko

Sorry,
It is a Dell desktop 2 gig processor 1gig ram...

Hairball

Can someone help?
Hairball

If you have a spare PCI slot on your mother board, it should. Might want to ask Dell to be certain. Also look at this one that Rogers machine sells. If you think you will ever need more than one port, now would be the time to do it. Just get a dual PCI card.

http://www.rogersmachine.net/PCIport.html

Brett

I do microcontroller programming and my programmer uses the parallel port. Problem is, so does my printer! So, I bought a Lava PCI parallel port card and added a second port. It works perfectly and although I don't use it for mach (different computer) I cannot imagine any problems the card would create. The only hard part is finding the port address for software that wants the address instead of the LPT number but that's actually easy - just open up control panel->Hardware->Device Manager then look at the properties for the card. Under "resources" the address range will be listed, just use the first hex number. Mine shows 8C00-8C07 so I use 8C00.

edit: Actually, you have a Dell.. Dell like to do things in a non-standard way (or at least, they have in the past). Best to call them and ask if a PCI parallel port card will actually function in the computer and, if so, which brands are known to work. For instance, my buddy bought a dell 4-5 years ago and after a while his kids had Win 98 all messed up.  He bought win 98 from the local store (del charged extra for the actual DISK for windows so he didn't have theirs) and tried unsuccessfully to install. It took a call to Dell support for him to find out the debug commands required to allow a non-Dell Windows to be installed (I was competely floored by this as I've been into computers since '79 and had never heard of such a thing). So, make that call - it may just not be possible to have a parallel port (though I'd be floored a second time if that were true).

I think best to first contact the supplier, as they pre-install the OS. If it is win xp you might have to reactivate the OS when it sees hardware changes at boot up. Microsoft has a automated telephone activation facility, or you can do it online with another pc. Somehow, this doesn't always happen, but more so with branded PC's.

There should be a spare PCI slot, parallel port addon cards are cheap and should fix your problem as the other people said.

Whacko

Thanks for all of the help. I ordered the card from Rogers and as soon as I get it I will install and let you guys know. I searched the
FAQ database at Dell and I may have to make some changes in the Bios. We shall see...
Thanks Danny

I always use a PCI card on a mach machine, as I figure if I accidently do something silly
with the wiring then it will most likely only blow the pci card and not the mother board.
plus a pci card from ebay is a fraction of the price of an opto isolated breakout board.
tony

When i was setting up my IH mill, with Aaron on phone with me i discovered my p-port only put out 3v ! Aaron told me then that p-ports as well the pci cards are not created equal ! and ! that he had a box full of pci cards that he had tested out. He was sold on and highly recomended the SIIG card of which i use now exclusively. I run two of them with the pc's p-port shut off ! I have no voltage issues with them and system is quite stabile now. I have a part number out in shop, but i'm in skivies and don't feel like running out there right now. SIIG has quite a list of these and I don't know if they are all equal or not.