2 Parallel Ports - 1 Intenal, 1 PCI Parallel Port Card not configuring

From what I see is that there’s no driver being loaded, this may or may not be a problem. It may be a problem if the card requires a driver to setup any registers in the chip.
But the easiest course maybe to try another card.

No ... The card is PCI not PCIe. I will try as you said. I have checked the IC on the card it is a CH351G based card with "A351SSP1@1306" inscribed ( possibly as model of the card). I visited the manufacturer page "www.wch-ic.com/downloads" and found a linux driver in CH35XDRV.ZIP file with following instructions:

1. open "Terminal"
2. cd "driver" directory
3. compile the driver using "make", you will see the module "wch.ko" if successful
4. "insmod wch.ko" to load the driver dynamically
5. "make install" to make the driver work permanently

However upon inspection of the .c and .h files in the DRV_1PA , DRV_1PB directories only mention with CH351 was 2S (meaning 2 Serial Ports Card). Whereas the Card I have is 1P (Only 1 Parallel port no serial port). I will compile and follow these instructions also while booting into Live version of LinuxCNC and see how it goes. May be I am missing something.

I wouldn’t bother with vendor supplied drivers.
They are really only for some of the manufacturer’s specific features of the chipset relating to the serial port.

From memory this card should be supported by parport_serial. The fact that there doesn’t seem to be a driver loaded is curious. I was wrong on this account whilst 1C00 does show up there is no entry for 1c00:2170, 1c00:3050 & 1c00:3250 are.

before we go too far have you established that the latency is adequate for software step generation ?

Have you tried the Parallel Port tester utility ? There are quite a few references to it in other threads dealing with Parallel Port issues. This topic usually comes up a few times a month. There’s a wealth of information on the forum but it seems the search function isn’t used.


What is still curious is that you haven’t supplied any error messages given by linuxcnc when starting a basic config. I’m pretty sure there is a supplied config for using a Parallel Port when running linuxcnc from the menu.

This maybe a solution, whilst the chipset is not the same it may just work.
www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-h...5657555/#post6018828

Tried both commands and got the following:

halcmd: loadrt hal_parport cfg="0xd000 out 0x378 out"
Waiting for component 'hal_parport' to become ready....Waited 3 seconds for master.  giving up.
.Note: Using POSIX realtime
config string '0xd000 out 0x378 out'
No parport registered at 0xd000. This is not always an error. Continuing.

halcmd: loadrt hal_parport cfg="0xd010 out 0x378 out"
hal_parport: already exists
<stdin>:2: waitpid failed /usr/bin/rtapi_app hal_parport
<stdin>:2: /usr/bin/rtapi_app exited without becoming ready
<stdin>:2: insmod for hal_parport failed, returned -1
halcmd:

Now frankly I don't have a clue but my guess is 'No parport registered at 0xd000' indicates that system knows there is a parallel port at that address but is unable to load a driver for it. 
 

Like that error says, it isn't always an error for Linuxcnc and the port may still work. Were you trying this command line in a Linuxcnc configuration? Did you test to see if you were able to input and output signals via the port?

The 2nd error when you tried the 2nd address is because you did not clear out the hal system from you trying the previous parallel port test. Often this requires rebooting the computer if previous test commands crashed and did not exit properly.

A test configuration can either be a basic machine configuration, or the parallel port test tool. (You must edit the test tool's config files to set it up to use the parallel port address that you wish to test.)

After checking lot of information and guidance from you guys finally I got a new card with MOSCHiP MSC9805CV and it straight away came up

mm1@mm1:~$ sudo cat /proc/ioports | grep parport
[sudo] password for mm1: 
  0378-037a : parport0
  037b-037f : parport0
      d050-d052 : parport1
      d053-d057 : parport1
mm1@mm1:~$ 

Thankyou all for guidance...

Its a PCI .... I bought it for Rs 400 that is like 1.1USD from a used item store.

I will check it up if they have more of them I will buy them and any one needs it can contact me.

I have a few PCIe cards around somewhere, don’t think the rest of the house is going be happy if I start rummaging thru all the “useful boxes” at 2:15 in the morning.
It can be such a mixed bag as well, a vendor might show a picture with one chip and then send a card with a different one.
It still can be a little plug and pray.
As the OP discovered it can be frustrating. No doubt in another couple of weeks this topic will come up and we’ll just be repeating the same stuff.
I’ve often thought of having an eBay store just to sell known working Parallel Port cards, but shipping from Down Under would be horrible and I lack certain skills when dealing with people.
Could be an idea for someone based in Europe, the UK or Canada to take on.