New wifi card causes second parallel port to stop working

  • sajurcaju
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14 May 2025 12:42 #328441 by sajurcaju
Setup:
LinuxCNC 2.9.0 using Axis, configured with Stepconf
Dell Precision Workstation T3500, 8g ram
Radeon HD 5700
Two identical Sunix PCIe parallel port cards
Mint Debian Edition 6
#1 SMP PREEMPT_RT Debian 6.1.128-1 (2025-02-07)
6.1.0-31-rt-amd64
Why do I have two parallel port cards? Some time ago, I damaged the MB parallel port.
This setup works great.

When I add a wifi card (TP-Link PCIe Wifi card AC600), the second parallel port card address changes (per dmesg). I updated the hal with Stepconf for the new address. Now in Axis, the Machine Power button is grayed out, like the estop circuit is open. Estop-in is on the second parallel port card, so I'm interpreting this as the wifi card is somehow blocking the second parallel port card.
I shutdown, removed the wifi card, updated the second parallel port card address, and it all works fine again.

Put the wifi card back in and ran ptest
forum.linuxcnc.org/18-computer/4743-parallel-port-tester   (thanks BigJohnT)
Both parallel port cards work with ptest, with the wifi card installed.

Advice will be greatly appreciated.
Steve

 

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  • langdons
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14 May 2025 14:14 #328451 by langdons
Why do you need wi-fi?

Wi-Fi will increase latency for your CNC system.

Your CNC PC should be as minimal as possible.

Ethernet is far better than Wi-Fi anyhow.

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14 May 2025 14:24 #328453 by unknown
Hard to really diagnose without seeing any relevant dmesg output or any info regarding the address of the parallel ports before failure and when failed.

If ptest works Linuxcnc should work.

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  • tommylight
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14 May 2025 14:27 #328454 by tommylight
In BIOS, see if there is the option to manually assign the IRQ resources and change the offending port IRQ so it is not the same as the WiFi card.
Not all PC's have that option.

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14 May 2025 14:27 #328455 by langdons
If you want to "surf the web", just get a second PC and use that for Wi-Fi.

Your CNC PC should probably be used solely for CNC stuff.

You can also potentially dual-boot (I recommend Ubuntu 22.04 LTS).

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  • langdons
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14 May 2025 14:29 - 14 May 2025 14:30 #328456 by langdons
Some computers have a terrible BIOS with almost no features at all.

My Dell XPS 17 has like almost no helpful options in the BIOS.

It's incredibly lame.

Most PCs are UEFI nowadays anyways.
Last edit: 14 May 2025 14:30 by langdons. Reason: Added more info.

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14 May 2025 14:29 #328457 by unknown

Why do you need wi-fi?

Wi-Fi will increase latency for your CNC system.

Your CNC PC should be as minimal as possible.

Ethernet is far better than Wi-Fi anyhow.


Why do you do this, you add nothing, it's of completely no use.
Stop being an oxygen thief and find some other forum to ply your idiocy.
Does this stuff come naturally to you or do you have to work hard to be such a waste of space ?

My apologies to the OP but the user is a menace and I just couldn't put up with his complete uselessness.

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  • langdons
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14 May 2025 14:35 #328460 by langdons
Please post the output of lspci -v

Did you try rearranging the cards?

Perhaps order matters.

Some computers are picky about such things.

Most computers I've seen have max 2 PCIe ports, you are fortunate to have 3, though perhaps this broken behavior explains why most PCs only have 2 ports.

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14 May 2025 14:42 #328462 by unknown
You can jam in as many parallel port cards as you have slots. They can be at any free address you have. If the on board one is buggered leaving it enabled will only affect the ISA compatible addresses, IE those hanging off the LPC bus. For the addresses allocated on the PCIe bus different realm, different interface, different bus. Hence the reason on board lpt ports don't show up via lspci, cos they are technically on the ISA bus but physically the LPC bus.

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14 May 2025 14:52 #328465 by langdons
lspci -v lists my installed Sunix parallel port PCIe card.

I also lists the haxadecimal port thingy (0xe30 or something).

To OP: You can buy a single card with 2 parallel ports from Sunix.
www.sunix.com/en/product_detail.php?pid=1434

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