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| Thread ID: 92598 | 2008-08-16 02:11:00 | Parallel port install problems | superoman (6703) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 697589 | 2008-08-16 02:11:00 | Hi I have installed a second parallel port on my computer. It works, but the address that it uses is not correct, Will this cause any issues? The card is a intek21. It shows up as LPT3 when I only have 2 parallel ports, also the irq and i/o address appears wrong. I know I can manually change the port to lpt2 but it doesnt change the other addresses Ive followed the install instructions on their website, and tried all of the solutions on the FAQ of their website to no avail - a lot of the solutions do not relate to settings in my bios. I have placed the card in all of my PCI ports with all the other cards removed to no avail. The ports show as follows Name LPT1 PNP Device ID MF\PCI#VEN_14DB&DEV_2120&SUBSYS_212014DB&REV_00\5&139347A2&0&3890#CHILD0000 I/O Port 0x0000A000-0x0000A007 I/O Port 0x0000A400-0x0000A403 Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\parport.sys (5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2108), 78.25 KB (80,128 bytes), 4/08/2004 10:59 a.m.) Name LPT3 PNP Device ID ACPI\PNP0401\1 I/O Port 0x00000278-0x0000027F I/O Port 0x00000678-0x0000067B DMA Channel Channel 3 Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\parport.sys (5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2108), 78.25 KB (80,128 bytes), 4/08/2004 10:59 a.m.) I always thought the ports should be as: LPT1 IRQ 7 0x378 0x37f LPT2 IRQ 7 0x278 0x27f LPT3 IRQ 5 0x3bc 0x3bf Any ideas? |
superoman (6703) | ||
| 697590 | 2008-08-16 02:56:00 | If it works, it's correct. :D Those traditional addresses date back to 1982 and the 8-bit ISA bus of the IBM 5050 PC. (The 3BC address was the original LPT address, used by the parallel interface included on the IBM monochrome video card.) The PCI bus uses a different port address mapping, and you'll probably find that neither parallel port uses IRQ 5 or 7 ... they'll probably share one IRQ with all the PCI devices. The only problem you might get with this is if you use old non-printer devices whose drivers use direct I/O port addressing, rather than operating through the OS. Windows XP won't like any such software. ;) I like software like that, so I'll always have a few computers which run OSs which allow me to switch bits in ports. Printers which have standard OS drivers won't care what the port addresses are; threy leave such details to the OS, and you're not supposed to know anything about them either. ;) |
Graham L (2) | ||
| 697591 | 2008-08-16 23:07:00 | Thanks for your reply. I am going to be writing software to control an external interface I have for the parallel port. I may have to use windows 95 or improve my programming skills | superoman (6703) | ||
| 697592 | 2008-08-17 05:19:00 | Your post rocks! | lasersguru (14084) | ||
| 697593 | 2008-08-19 02:31:00 | You may find that the old port addresses do work, regardless of how the PCI hardware is implemented. I've accessed parallel and serial ports directrly on W2k machines withh PCI bus. I wouldn't go back to W95; most of my stuff works in W98 or W2k. I'm reluctantly looking at using USB, but there are problems with that: single byte operations are very slow because of the USB overheads, and I won't be able to use Turbo Pascal. If speed's not a problem, some USB-parallel adapters do let you access the status bits, though some don't. :( There are dummy drivers for W2k and XP which let you access ports without going through the OS. I tried one in XP and I could programme a PIC microcontroller though a USB-serial adapter, but it was very slow. It's easier and quicker to use an old computer with a real port. |
Graham L (2) | ||
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