New Mobo

[cropwell]

Hi,
Did all that and it went smooth for about 10seconds. The board is a Gigabyte GA-7VM266 and the processor is an Athlon 1.8Gig. Compared with the 1.3 Duron that it was on before. That was fine for a couple of months then it started hanging even in loading XP.

It got gradually worse and then became too unreliable to use.

I have disabled anything in the Bios I don't need. LAN, Sound,Games port and MIDI port. The BoB runs on a PCI card with 2 printer ports. All the Board drivers have been (correctly?) installed and there are no yellow question marks in the device manager.

When I switch on and go into Mach3 all is fine for a short time, then it starts to judder. Could the problem be in the BoB even ? I can't believe that all three stepper drivers have gone faulty at the same time.


I think I am going to leave this now till Sunday and then I might do a clean install of Windows and reload the software.

I am just getting a bit boggled with this.

[Swarfing]

It sounds like you have done that already and it is still not working though? One thing you could try is to move the address the Par ports are on to different address, don't forget to let mach3 know what they are. Also try moving the card to another slot n the MB?

[cropwell]

I've done all that. I think the only way forward is a clean install on a fresh disk. The thing that is really bugging me is that it works fine for half a minute after reboot then starts the judders. It sounds like a bearing has gone.
I have tried disabling every thing I don't need like ctmon.exe and crss.exe, but nothing makes it any good.

[Swarfing]

See if you can find a port analyser/ monitor off the net and look at the latency. If it dips when you see the juddering then you know it is the install and not the hardware. i would blame windows every time regardless if the hardware was naff :-)

If it is the install then i should imagine something is taking priority over the card causing the latency issues. Investigating the software cost nothing before you spend any more on hardware. See if there is a newer driver for the card?

[Jonathan]

I just hit the reset button a few times and it booted. Lots and lots of hard disk errors displayed, but looks like Ubuntu is above such things as it's working just fine. I'll sort it out at some point... well that's what I keep thinking.

[blackburn mark]

well that's what I keep thinking.

ha :) i suffer from that one... if a kick or a slap fixes it then a kick or a slap it is

[cropwell]

Just remember - If it can't be fixed with a hammer - it's probably electrical

[Mad Professor]

I had a problem something like that months ago, in the end I gave up trying to find the problem and brought an ESS.

Here are my related posts.

DPC spikes stalling stepper motors.
and
Moschip Semiconductor MCS9865 Printer Port Cards.

Hope you get your problem sorted.

[cropwell]

My old motherboard worked fine for about three months, then it started freezing and spoiled a couple of pieces of work. The problem gradually got worse until eventually Windows would not boot. At that point I decided another MoBo might be a solution, so I got one for free from a mate who runs a PC repair business. Board, memory and processor had been in a customer's machine before he upgraded and AFAIK working as files and settings were transferred from it.

In my working life as a freelance IBM Assembler programmer,I had a few occasions where the client had a problem, didn't know the cause and expected me to fix it within his timescale. In this case I am my own client, I can understand the frustrations and don't have the pressures.

I have done a clean install of XP pro up to SP3 reinstalled Mach3 and set it up to use the native LPT1 without the PP board in the machine. PROBLEM PERSISTS

My next step is to try another computer, I have one spare.

The only up-side of the issue is that I am saving money by not breaking cutters. Is there a market for 3.17mm diameter TC rods about 25mm long ?

[Jonathan]

I have done a clean install of XP pro up to SP3 reinstalled Mach3 and set it up to use the native LPT1

Perhaps try LinuxCNC? Even if you don't want to use it in the long term, if it works you'll know it's a software problem.

The only up-side of the issue is that I am saving money by not breaking cutters. Is there a market for 3.17mm diameter TC rods about 25mm long ?

I occasionally use the bench grinder to turn them into V-cutters, which are fine for simple PCBs. I've got enough for now though!