speedup scanner/486 system?

Tednewell,

1) How much RAM in your computer?
Swapping to the hard drive takes a long time.

2) Have you tried reducing resolution?
A much smaller file will be generated, resulting in less time to scan and much less storage space.  I see 1MB video card, so that limits your color depth to 256 colors.  If you don't need hi-res graphics, you won't waste time by forcing the computer to do a lot of extra work.

3) Have you tried both EPP and ECP settings?

4) Do you have the proper cable?
Some printer cables won't operate bi-directionally.

Regards,
Ralph

Ralph: YES to all suggestions!  The cable was supplied by the scanner maker; I have 20 Megs Ram; Virtual memory 180Megs.
As far as I can see from the IO card specs (found on the net) the only option ecp/epp is "bidirectional" -- nothing more specific.  Might even be ps/2 standard rather than epp or ecp.
And, my main interest is OCR, so I have set the resolution on the scanner as low as 50dpi without significantly faster scan times.
Is the cause of speedier scanning lost?

PP scaner is slow you need to get scsi scaner if you need the speed.

Ted,
JBURGHARDT is correct in that SCSI will be much faster.
But I feel that ten minutes is an inordinate amount of time, even for a parallel scanner.
Does the scanner use a Twain driver for Win95?
If so, are you using a 16 or 32-bit version?
Ralph

Ralph--
The scanner is using a Twain 32 scanner interface.
Ten minutes prescan/scan _Does_ seem a bit long.

Suggestion:
Why bother with the pre-scan?  Just stop when all the text is scanned from the page.
Ralph

Ralph:  Since I was hoping to OCR chapters (e.g. 20 pages) even at a 5 minutes scan the whole process is way too slow.
I understand motherboard design has moved beyond separate IO/IDE controllers to having the IDE controller right on the motherboard.
So--is there some way to get the data from the scanner into my circa 1992 motherboard, or should I try and sell the scanner, do you think?  Or, would a different parallel port make any difference?  What should I look for?

Adjusted points to 130

The SCSI scanner interface should make a big difference.  You might try to look for those that advertise the time for a scanning a page to compare.
Ralph

is the scanner attached to a shared port? (printer)

If so, especially with Bi-Di, try just attaching the scanner, and nothing else, directly to the port(LPT1?)

even if all seems to be working well with a shared port, drivers contest if they are on the same port.  Some work, some do not.

Parallel scanners connect to the parallel port of the computer. They normally have a connector on the back which allows another parallel device, such as a printer, to be connected at the same time. They are usually cheaper and slower than SCSI scanners and have slightly lower image qualities.

When scanning an image , it is not uncommon for a computer to appear to lock up. This is NORMAL. Depending on the amount of RAM (memory) the PC has, and the resolution of the scan, it may also take several minutes to complete.

Solutions:
1) Add more RAM or
2) Scan at a lower resolution or
3) Buy a SCSI scanner (if you have a SCSI port)

PS. Check the computers BIOS, make sure the parallel port type is set to EPP if you have a parallel scanner.

Ted replies:  I have only the scanner attached to LPT1.  I haven't installed any other drivers (eg printer) to the port, though -maybe- Win95 does so automatically?
I'd still be interested to know whether an inexpensive upgrade might fix my slow scanner problem.

About the only things to try are to add RAM and a faster CPU.
Ralph

If you get a new controller card that supports 16550 UART then you might be able to get more speed, but this would probabaly entail a motherboard upgrade also, so you'd be better off getting a new motherboard and get total speed all around. Just a thought.


Mike

Everyone here keeps refering to the bus speed as being your problem...
It seems to me that consideration to the scanning speed of the scanner itself. 10 minutes IS inordinately long scan time.
I have a printer port scanner(EPP) and I can scan a full page 600 DPI photo in about 1 to 1.5 minutes with prescan.

I would suspect the scanner as a problem at this point.

John C. Cook

You can go and get new printer card EPP it will spped your scaning time you can install it as Lpt2

Ted,
Since you already indicated that you have your printer port set for bi-directional, I don't think this last answer is going to solve the problem.

Have a look at this page to get an idea of what is available:

http://www.opticalimage.com/canon.htm

Let me know if you need more.
regards,
Ralph

JB's reply did not really solve my problem within the given parameters; after all, I do not own a SCSI scanner but a  parallel one -- which I regret.-
But I'm beginning to accept that the cause is lost.  My 486, which after the upgrade is as good as most any 486 ever was, is not going to scan at any meaningful volume.
I think Artec, the manufacturer, ought to be honest enough to include the need for a Pentium system right on their packaging.
I was enthralled to read in rm's last post about the Canon machine that performs 40 pages a minute!
I would be content with ONE page a minute.
On reflection, I just can't believe that a 486 w/ bi-dir parallel port is still at 2 minutes prescan 2 minutes scan and who knows how long for OCR.
Can anyone else take a stab at a cheap hardware solution?  a software solution?

Can you just try upgrading to about double the amount of ram you have? It worked for me... I have 48 megs of the stuff on a pentium 60... not that different at all...

Good Luck.

try www.onsale.com/computers.html they have motherboard for pentium for 29 also other parts. Also try exchange some people sell good stuff for olmost free I got 486 motherboard with intell 486 50 mhz with 4 mb ram for $12 my local store want $60 just for motherboard

The fact that you have a 486 will exacerbate the speed problem on the computers end...as will a lack of memory.
Remember a graphics image of, lets say, 600dpi at 4.5 x 5 inches will require about 24 Meg of memory. So you are going to have alot of Virt memory swapping going on.
My DX4 100 was slower than My Pent 100...My pent 100 was slower than my AMD 233...I could physically see the difference in speed when the processing portion of the acquire was occurring. I put in 64 Meg a ram and that made even more difference.
Bottom line...Raw prcessing power will improve your acquire times. A SCSI bus would improve it even more. But for the price difference I'll take my 1.5 minutes :-).

Just my opinion,
John C. Cook

Ted,
There are many inexpensive scanners out there, but they're aimed more for the occasional user, rather than production.

I presume you are trying to do some serious work with your scanner.  If that work pays you, and your time is valuable, then you need to aquire the best tools the job can afford.

After all, just because a dress can be sewn together using a needle-and-thread, doesn't mean that a successfull dressmaker would use it instead of a commercial sewing machine. (commercial....  not a domestic machine)

Best regards,
Ralph

Oops, I almost forgot........
Q:  "CAN I make a cheap upgrade and see things improve?"

A:  No.
..Ralph

You're talking out of your balls. I know for a fact that more memory always helps, up to 64megs in windows 95, and if you're doing graphics, the more you have, the faster the image manipulation in general. I agree that cpu comes into the equation when doing complicated manipulations of large images, but that's beside the point. Scanning is all about data transfer, therefore maximum RAM, less cpu

Ted replies: now here's a dilemma!  either take the existing 486 and pour in
more SIMMS and/or a LPT2 capable of EPP data transfer.
OR Go for broke, unload the 486 and acquire a P133 with at least 30megs of RAM, likely a $160 project at least.
I thought, naively, that having a faster processor would compensate
for not having that much RAM.  But I hear some differences of opinion here.
30-pin SIMMS second-hand are cheap; but would I be pouring good money
after bad?

Listen,
If you go to a computer show and purchase your stuff you can come out pretty cheap.
Last show I saw AMD233 processors for 75.00, I bought 64 Meg of SDRAM for 64 bucks, an AGP motherboard(yes for Socket 7) fo 89.00 and an AGP Diamond stealth 4000 for 45.00.
I kept my same case, drives and monitor.
You can do it also. Watch for Computer show is your area.
More info if you are interested.

John C. Cook

have you tried the scanner on a different computer. also have you tried the 16bit twain driver?  I agree that graphics take raw power but I think there is something else wrong here.  10 min is much to long even for a 486.  

Bill

Ted replies:  I appreciate all the insight I'm getting from per-
sisting with questions here.  Thanks to everybody.
One clarification please:  Am I right that a more RAM might
compensate for a slower processor?  That is, if I acquire another
20 megs of SIMMS somewhere to make 40 total, could I expect
radically improved performance?  I seem to hear two different
answers above.  (After the answer, I'm going to leave off questions!)

yes you will see an improvement. How radical the improvement will be is hard to say.


Regards
Bill

Ted,
I think you'll find suggestions for more RAM & faster CPU at the very beginning of this thread.
You already have a bi-directional printer port.
I also think that if you are scanning for OCR in B/W, the amount of memory needed for scanning your text documents at low resolution won't approach 20 MB!
You never commented about whether or not you consider that good tools for a job will make doing the job more efficient.........
Remember, running Win95 requires a whale of a computer.  Just because it will run on a 386 doesn't mean that anyone would try to do anything serious with it.
Just my two cents worth.......
Regards,
Ralph

Ralph is quite right!
A 600 DPI full page Line Art(B/W) image will take just under 4Meg of memory. So memory may not be you entire solution here.
.. the benchmarking information provided by richrussell is very interesting. This is a good gauge by which to judge your 10 minute scan times. You seem to fall right in line with his results.

John C. Cook

John, how about 200DPI?  Enough for OCR.....
Ralph

Ted replies: The proposed answer is Excellent!  Thanks to one and all
for every two cents' worth.
I still did not get a direct answer to my proposed CPU/RAM trade
off, that is, faster processor would make more RAM less necessary.
Maybe I just need to read up a chapter on memory somewhere.
AGAIN, Thanks so much to Ralph, JB, and Richard, not to mention
gravity and pctech who had penetrating things to say.  THANKS folks!