Motion Control drivers and motors

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The only problem I'm really facing now is this hesitation once about every 8-9 seconds. At slower velocity the motors do not stall. I've even disconnected the Direction Pulse to see if that helps but nothing helps. I don't have access to a Desktop machine and so am keen to get this laptop working.

Bruce, I see you've asked the question in the Mach3 Yahoo group and they are giving the same answer I gave you earlier. Laptops have serious issues with MACH3. I got reasonable results by doing the optimization dance and running RMClock and demoting my laptop to Win2000 but you are running on a knife edge all the time.

I had the exact same problem as you. After all my tweaking, I still had this annoying little twitch every few seconds, like a little "tick" and I had to run my machine at a crazy 500mm/min to avoid missed steps and stalls. IMO, the problem lies solely in the laptop. If it is an Intel CPU, disable SmartStep or whatever it is called in the BIOS, put Win2000 on it set up as a Standard PC, No desktop backgrounds etc, turn off all power management and install RMClock, set it to "MAXIMAL PERFORMANCE" (keep an eye on your temp levels!) and make sure the "Run HLT" box in management is ticked. You might be lucky and have a usable sytem at that point, I did but it was touch and go and my CPU temps were getting to meltdown point. You could also install a free program called SpeedFan to automatically control your laptops fans to keep things cool, not perfect but it works.

Seriously Bruce, in my honest opinion you have two options, desktop or something to take the strain off the laptops parallel port, i.e. a SmoothStepper.

My Dell C640 laptop before the SmoothStepper had to be stripped to the bones to run Mach3 with any smoothness and then only slowly. Now it is back to XP Pro, my CAD/CAM software can run at the same time as Mach3 and my CPU doesn't get above 47 degrees.

I'll probably get shot down for this but that's my opinion, having had almost identical problems to you and having to solve them myself. Take it for what it's worth. Good luck anyway.