Grex Micros Conference

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Grex Micros Item 213: Scanner not found on reboot
Entered by drew on Sun Aug 22 02:18:41 UTC 1999:

    I picked up a flatbed - Microtek Slimscan C3 Parrallel Port - and have
been trying it out. It works once it's recognized, and gives reasonable
quality images. However, every time I re-boot into NT, the automatic program
whose job it is to look for the scanner tells me it can't find it. Shutting
down and turning the computer off (leaving the scanner on), then turning it
back on again *usually* is sufficient to get the scanner recognized and
working.

    Is this to be expected with parallel port scanners? Or do I have a
defective one?

7 responses total.

#1 of 7 by gull on Sun Aug 22 05:49:58 1999:

Are you switching everything on simultaneously with a power strip?  Could be
the scanner's not ready to be 'found' by the time the machine checks for it. 
The obvious solution would be to just leave it on all the time.  (Don't do
that if it's one of the ones that leaves its scanning light on constantly,
though.)  Otherwise, I'd try switching it on several seconds before booting
the machine.

#2 of 7 by drew on Sun Aug 22 16:28:04 1999:

I've tried the power strip, and gave it up in favor of leaving the scanner
on at all times. This is with attempts to reboot - both hard and soft -
without ever switching anything off. On occasion, it works okay. But it's
usually necessary for me to turn off the computer, then turn it back on again.
(And sometimes *that* doesn't work; I have to turn off the scanner, then turn
it on before turning on the computer.)

Is this normal for equipment like this? Am I eventually going to have a
scanner that won't *ever* be found by the computer?

#3 of 7 by wlevak on Mon Aug 23 04:36:17 1999:

I've run into this with other scanners.  Apparently the scanner does not reset
the interface when it resets, hence everything must be turned off and back
on again in order to reset the interface.  Some internel modems have this
problem too.

#4 of 7 by drew on Wed Aug 25 05:33:51 1999:

The scanner's going back. It's starting to screw up even when everything's
powered on in the "right" order. Unacceptable.

#5 of 7 by drew on Wed Sep 8 02:28:58 1999:

Found one finally that appears to be working okay: A UMAX Astra 1220P, for
about the same cost ($40 after rebate). Same interface (parallel), same
daisychaining of the printer, and no "scanner not found" messages so far.
It probably is just that Microtek blows.

Visioneer was recommended as good by someone in AACS; but when I downloaded
their software and tried it out, it installed itself automatically on drive
C (the DOS partition) without ever giving me a chance to put it elsewhere.
And some of their stuff required Service Packs, which I previously had trouble
with so don't use.

I'll run the UMAX periodically for a couple weeks, then will probably
pronounce it good and send the rebate form.

#6 of 7 by kenb on Fri Oct 22 04:53:28 1999:

"Scanner not found" usually results from a cheap (uni-directional) serial
cable.  I've found that changing to a fully implemented bi-directional cable
solves the problem.

#7 of 7 by drew on Tue Oct 26 19:37:00 1999:

Cable came with the scanner in each case. And a cable that was missing some
of the wires should have given the "scanner not found" error *all* the time
right from the start. I *was* able to get a few scans with the Microtek at
first.

In any event, problem long since solved. Thanks for the help.

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