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cnixon

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Windows 98 and Adaptec 2940

I just bought a new Gateway E4200 450 MHz Pentium II system so that my Polaroid SprintScan 35ES would scan 35 mm slides faster (Ha!). After installing the slide scanner at the end of the SCSI chain that internally includes an Adaptec 2940 controller (running a 9 GB SCSI hard drive) which is externally chained through the ultrawide connector to a 100 MB Iomega Zip drive then a HP ScanJet 4C flatbed scanner and finally the Polaroid SprintScan slide scanner I completely scrambled the registry of the Windows
98 operating system and had to reformat the hard drive twice (both times while on the phone, following the directions of Gateway technical support).
I then tried to attach the Polaroid SprintScan Slide scanner to the Adaptec 1505 controller card that was shipped with the scanner. This caused my modem
drivers to become corrupted but I was actually able to scan some slides - but at a much slower pace that when the scanner was attached to the old system (a 200 MHz Pentium I system running Windows 95). The slides would go down just part way into the scanner and the software would display
"calibrating scanner" message for 60 - 90 seconds until a time out message would appear. After trying this over and over eventually the scanner would scan the slide. After contacting both Adaptic customer support and "level 2"
customer support at Polaroid I was told to purchase a "plug and play" SCSI controller and so I shelled out another $65 for an Adaptic 2920 controller.
When I attached the SprintScan slide scanner to this controller I also corrupted my modem driver and the slide scanning still hangs for at least 60 seconds at the. I then and moved the card to another PCI slot and had the
same result. I then disabled the "plug and play" option of the IRQ used for the scanner in the system BIOS setup and then was finally able to use the scanner without ruining the modem drivers but the scanner still hangs at the
"calibrating scanner" screen. The only suggestion Adaptec customer support can offer is to shuffle the cards into different PCI slots and hope that one combination makes the scanner work properly. Can anybody offer a logical solution to this? I'm thinking that the scanner is hanging because of
interrupt conflicts but this doesn't appear in the device manager.
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cnixon

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Adjusted points to 100
Did you know that the SCSI for compatibility all devices become equal. This means that your 9 GIG drives (assuming its an Ultawide drive)IO becomes as fast as the Zip drives. (Scsi ultrawide = scsi 1 or maybe 2)
The adaptec 1505 should have come complete with a rather complex instruction sheet. ie: several jumpers need to be moved to change IRQ. I think its original default was where it always caused problems with soundcards.
 
As a suggestion, place the 9gig drive on the 2940 and everything else on the 1505. Pay particular attention to last device on the cable being Terminated also terminate the 2940.

Gee, isn't it fun when you ring customer support and they tell you to spend more money. Just like when you ring Microsoft and they say reinstall windows and ring us back.

One other question, is you modem internal or external
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mwakefield

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