Did the searching thing, but couldnt find what I was looking for, so here goes.. I'm running a Sunsway PCI card with a parallell port, as my mobo doesn't have one. Attached to this card is my LCD display. Card: http://www.sunsway.com.hk/products/pci-1p.html Display: http://www.microplex.no/product.aspx?pid=JTLCD20X4BL&mcat= Problem is that the display only shows what I believe is the "welcome screen". 2 lines are all dotted, the 2 others are blank. I've tried every single driver for the PCI card, as well as several lcd display programs like LCD Smartie. I've come to the point that I think I have to set the parallell port to EPP mode, instead of ECP, but I can't figure out how. All help greatly appreciated!
have you checked the lcd works correctly (try a friends computer with the lcd), or maybe you are using the wrong address for the LPT port?
Sometimes for Windows Xp and other related operating systems you have to download the driver to allow LCD Smartie to talk with the parallel port. The problem here is that windows has blocked direct access to any physical ports on your computer. For what reason we will not get into. Look for the port95 driver around the lcd smartie pages. It will allow you to actually intialize the parallel port that your lcd is attached to. One other option just for testing is using the crystal fontz, crystalcontrol program. Although it is not as advanced as lcd smartie, it does have everything built into it to allow communication with your LCD. I only use it to quickly test new lcd's. Also check through the device manager to find the port address of your Parallel card. Most likely it is set as lpt3 depending on your motherboard. To Open your device manager: -Start > Run > devmgmt.msc To check the port settings -Expand "Ports (COM & LPT) You should see it listed under there if your drivers are working properly. If you want to know the exact address of the parallel port listed just right click on the device and goto properties. Then goto the resources tab. It will be the first number listed in the "Resource Settings" Generally anyway. Let us know how you fare.
Thank you for the input. I feel like a complete n00b here, I can't get this thing to work. As displayed under the resources tab: Resource type: | I/O range: I/O Range | BC00 - BC07 I/O Range | B880 - B887 I tried the Crystalcontrol program which gives me a list of adresses to chose from - 0x278, 0x378, 0x3CB. None of these seem to work. I'm sure the thing is connected properly. I've read somthing about ECP and EPP mode on the port, but I can't figure out how to change this, as it's a PCI card, and not onboard - hence no bios setting. It's currently in ECP mode, - at least device manager says it is. The port is currently set as LPT3 btw. Any other things I should check out? Edit: Just pulled the card out to see if there are any jumpers on the card, but no..
Ok, now I feel even dumber. I simply typed "BC00" into the address field in LCD Smartie. And guess what, - it works. Might have been something else, I don't know for sure, as I've lost track of all the different drivers and stuff I've tested. Well, thanks for the input guys.
One more thing to add, I changed the driver to this one: NetMos PCI SPP/BPP/ECP/EPP Port instead of NetMos PCI ECP Port. Both were drivers that came with the card.
