[WriteLog] RE: User Port appears to have destroyed a Dell Insprion8100

[kk9a at arrl.net]

I find this story very interesting.  I recently purchased a Dell Dimension
2GHz with the Windows XP Pro operating system.  I installed Userport and
plugged in a parallel port keyer and it appeared to work well, until my
first contest - the 2003 ARRL CW Contest.  Somehow the Dell parallel port
burned out just before the start of the contest and I had to operate the
contest using an old Toshiba laptop.  Dell came to my house and replaced the
motherboard which fixed the problem, but I'm afraid to use it.  I also have
a SIIG PCI parallel port on the computer so I just purchased Direct IO which
allowed me to access both parallel ports.   I operated the WPX CW contest
last weekend using my PCI port (LPT 2) with no problems.

73,
John  KK9A / P40A


----- Original Message -----
From: "Barry Merrill" <barry at mxg.com>
To: "Writelog at Contesting. Com" <writelog at contesting.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2003 17:07
Subject: [WriteLog] RE: User Port appears to have destroyed a Dell
Insprion8100


This is an update to my April 5 posting of this same subject.

When I reported to Dell Technical Support on that Saturday that the
machine would not power up at all, instead of getting an expected RMA
to return the 18-month-old notebook for repairs, Dell immediately sent
me an Inspiron 8200 notebook (1.7GHz vs 700 MHz, bigger hard drive,
with Windows/XP vice 2000!) that arrived on Wednesday morning!

But before again trying UserPort and the LPT keying circuit and burning
up the new 8200, I spent the last six weeks trying to get someone at
Dell in technical support who understands their power systems that could
discuss what might have happened, to no avail.  It turns out that the
old machine I sent back is never going to be examined by anyone at Dell;
it just goes to a warehouse, and my detailed note attached to the machine
to request an explanation will never be answered; and my point-of-contact
replacement-sending-guy could care less as to why it failed, since his
job is only to get me the replacement machine.

So yesterday I installed User Port software on the new Inspiron 8200,
then plugged in the (same) LPT Keying Circuit, and it works perfectly!

 I first went to Control Panel, System, LPT section, to see what IO address
 are used on this system, then started User Port, deleted all default
addresses,
 and typed in the 03xx-03yy range from the control panel.

So I must now assume that there was some other defect in the Inspiron 8100
hardware that caused that pop and smoke immediately after plugging in the
LPT Keying circuit, after starting User Port, so I withdraw my accusation
that it was User Port itself that caused the old machine to die, and I can
now confirm, as have many others, that you can use LPT Keying with Windows
XP
and User Port software.


Barry, W5GN






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