'Test this axis'

Having just cleaned a huge insect nest out of my old SuperCam controller box, I've got as far as trying to establish the correct address for the parport.Checking in the Dell bios, it lists 378h, which I entered.Getting as far as 'Test this axis' for the X axis, I got an error pop up as attached (Had to photo the screen).While I still have question marks over various other entries, I'd be grateful if anyone could interpret this for me.Possible extra info - when I turn on the power to the controller, I would have expected there to be a reaction from the steppers, just being activated. Is this so ? Nothing, in my case.Regards John 

Thanks Andy - any port in a storm !
John

I've just had a brain wave - checked the parport mode in the bios, and discovered the default setting for this pc is PS/2.
Now faced with decision - EPP or ECP ?
EPP gives 2 addresses - 378h or 278h ?
ECP gives 3 addresses - 378h, 278h and 3BCh.
In addition, ECP then offers a DMA channel setting - OFF, DMA1 or DMA3

Feel I've opened a can of worms, but may be on the right track !
John

EDIT I've tried EPP with both addresses, but in both case I get the 'Error - broken pipe' pop up.

Many thanks for the quick reply.
1st job after we've eaten !
John

tommylight wrote:

Set it to EPP and 0x378.
Got through stepconfig, enter values as correctly as you can, save the config, start said config and test the machine.
 

A frustrating few days of repeating this, but whatever settings I use, I get to the stage of 'test this axis', and it produces no reaction from the motor. I've also tried the Y and Z axis, with the same result.

I've had the lid off of the controller box, and checked a few voltages, and they seem to be as per wiring diagram.
Not sure where to go next.
I did wonder if there is a way of energizing the controller with external connections onto the parport socket without using the pc output. Some sort of dummy set up ?
I don't want to have to build a new controller, but it may come to that.
John

Thanks tommylight.
I've done as suggested, but had no luck.
I repeated the compete set, but this time re-booting after each change, but still no result.

A bit more background. I'm using a Dell GX620, specifically bought for this project. The hdd was the original I brought with me from UK, because it had both Ubuntu(8.04) and my download of Linuxcnc(whatever was current in June2013), and that had been used successfully with my original cnc machine loaded on it.

I did wonder if the Dell parport has a different pinout to 'standard'. In the bios, it shows the parport address as 378h, so I wondered if there were other differences !
I have used 0x378, as you suggest earlier, and that got rid of the 'error' window.
Regards
John