Question for you gurus out there...

I have just set up a new computer running windows XP and Mach3. I have my router set up to use LPT1 for the step and direction to the X, Y, and Z axis motors, the E stop input, and the home switch inputs (on 3 different pins.) I added another parallel port card to the PC and tried to configure it for the encoder (MPG) inputs and the limit switch inputs. Whenever an input is triggered on the second parallel port card, it causes the PC to hang. I have to hard reboot to get the machine to come back up.

This problem does not happen with LPT1 on the motherboard. The problem does not happen if I unplug LPT2 from the controller. For some reason, the second parallel port card is not accepting inputs. I'm assuming this is a problem with the card itself, or the driver. The card uses a MOSCHIP device.

Anyone else having a similar problem? Any suggestions on a particular brand of parallel port card that works well?

Thanks,
Rick

I have a PCI Pport card for LPT2 with a MOSCHIP and it runs fine in the DELL im using.  Did you try changing the settings in the BIOS.  Try all the setting you have EPP ECP.....

Some cards cant be configured for Bi Directional so that may be your problem. What I did when I had this problem was swap cables and port numbers around and used the PCI card as Port1 and mobos PP as port 2. That way I could get the outputs 2-9 set as Inputs as the mobos PP worked perfectly BiDirectional.
 Having said that your problem seems worse in that the Inputs are causing a crash which suggests a driver issue rather than just the ports not accepting bidirectional I/O
Hood