[quegley]

After searching around and waiting to find a reasonable Hobby CNC, I bought a used MAXNC. Yes, I know, there are better ones out there, but the price was right and my wife needed it for a project at UTA. ('Thats what they all say...') I saw this machine work before I picked it up. I read all the instructions, but I think I'm coming up against a technical wall. I volunteered an old laptop to be my computer, unwrapped all the MAXNC CL software, ran the XP conversion tool, read the xpsetup.txt file, fired up the son of a gun and crickets.

The keyboard becomes non responsive after I open any of the command prompt windows, meaning by pressing any key to continue, nothing happens. I tried this on the port.exe program and tried to enter anything, and nothing. I am pretty sure the port addresses are correct (378, default) and I have gone through a couple of game websites looking for tricks to get 'DOS' programs to run on XP. I have tried just about everything I can find. The MAXNC documentation is lame and the troubleshooting guide is a great big opportunity for someone to paint a pretty picture.

The machine itself has a high pitch whine when on. Other than that I'm pretty much at a loss. Any help would be appreciated.

[gabedrummin]

Pretty sure D.O.S. wont work on xp you need a old computer running win 95 or 98...Mine runs great and the high pitch wine is nornal for the stepper drives.Yes it is closed loop running steppers.If you want to use a XP computer better get Mach software to run it.....

[quegley]

Thanks gabedrummin,

I'm getting that stinkin' feeling something is up with the OS. I am about as stubborn as you get. Just ask my wife. I found a little tidbit from a gaming site about loading the "Standard PC" instead of the ACPI version of XP, because XP is constantly polling the ports for activity. I have a hard time believing MAXNC would put conversion software on the program floppy and not mean for it to work. Heavy on the sarcasm. It wouldn't be the first time a company wasted a lot of folks time on junky software. When I tried to unload ACPI and install Standard PC it wouldn't let me follow through. Dumb software, never met me, I don't give up that easy. And if I end up wiping the disk clean and starting over, I'll load a different OS.

[knudsen]

Tried running in compatibility mode?

Create a shortcut on the desktop if there is not one already, rt click it, properties, compatibility tab, check the box under "compatibility mode," pick an OS to try. I usually start with 95 and work up trying each one, but it's anyones guess which, if any will work.

[quegley]

Been there, done that. Not to say I won't try it again. I'm going to liquidate the drive and load a fresh copy of XP in "Standard PC" first. Thanks though, I've not given up. Yet.

[knudsen]

Been there, done that. Not to say I won't try it again. I'm going to liquidate the drive and load a fresh copy of XP in "Standard PC" first. Thanks though, I've not given up. Yet.

Wish I had a better idea for you. I would go ahead with the reload, but see if you can get some keyboard drivers if you haven't already. I don't thin I've seen updatable firmware for keyboards, but if that exist, it may be equally as important.

I hate reloading laptops.

Good luck.

[quegley]

Well, I reloaded XP. I got my "Standard PC." I reloaded MAXNC software, unwrapped the maxxp.bat file. No luck. Whatever. I'm really starting to think I need to run this out of a DOS platform. I need to confirm my CNC is good, so I'm going to use the trial MACH3 software and check it out.