Can't get printer back on LPT1. Help!

[Kentucky Fisherman]

I flashed the BIOS on my FIC PA-2013 in order to upgrade my CPU to a K6-III 450+. After doing that, I got a port conflict message upon bootup and indeed have been having frequent lockups. I've fiddled and diddled with my COM port and IRQ settings to no avail.

Somewhere in the midst of this, I uninstalled my printer, thinking it might help diagnose or resole the IRQ conflicts. When I re-installed the printer, it doesn't give me LPT1 as an option, just COM1 or File. I do have a ZIP drive connected to the parallel port and the printer was previously chained off the ZIP, and they both worked fine. The system still recognizeds the ZIP drive and can access it, so I assume from that that LPT1 still does exist, right?

So what do I try next? Maybe totally remove the ZIP drive and then try to reinstall the printer to see if it will then recognize and connect to LPT1?

 

[HdwGuy]

After you flashed the bios did you load default setup in the bios settings? If you did not this can cause all kinds of funky problems. Load defalt's and then change any setting that you would normally change to your system.

Good luck

 

[Kentucky Fisherman]

Yeah, I did hit the bios defaults, HdwGuy, so I don't think that's the problem. What's really got me boggled is why the printer setup doesn't want to offer me LPT1 as a connection option. ???

 

[Andrew99]

Just a random guess here... You chained two devices off of the same LPT port ... Does the chicken have to come before the egg? It might be that the zip drive's software allowed the zip drive to integrate itself with the printer... But the printer does not have this same power... The printer setup might be looking for "available" ports, and since the zip drive is already using LPT 1, it doesn't allow you to select it... You can try to remove the zip drive and software/drivers... Then start over with just the printer ... if that works, put the zip drive back on ...

Just a suggestion...

 

[Kentucky Fisherman]

I'm beginning to think this is exactly the right answer, Andrew. Thanks for suggesting it.