Need Parallel add-on card info (IRQ)

[Lorne]

We are upgrading alot of our equipment and find that the new puters we ordered dont have parallel ports.
We have tried add-ons with no success as the old program we use want IRQ7 spacificly and add-on cards we found so far dont and only support PnP and set the IRQs way up and the win7 setting for manual adjust is shadowed out (Never thought it would come to this).
The old program uses a dongle.
We have tried many software to try and alter this but to no avail, Win7 just wont do it right.
Even the bios on these new machines dont support IRQ - PCI adjust.

Anyone have any info on a PCI-Parallel card that has manual jumpers it would help greatly.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I cannot recall the last PCI card that I've seen with manual jumpers. PCI doesn't work that way. There are four interrupt lines, INTA, INTB, INTC, and INTD, on the PCI bus. Cards use generally one of these, and which one they use is defined by the wiring on the PCI bus on the motherboard. Which legacy interrupt they map to, is totally defined by the BIOS. So if the BIOS doesn't allow you to set the PCI IRQ mappings, then that is a defect in the BIOS.

Or you could replace the motherboards with something like this, that still has a parallel port.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128357
Gigabyte G31M-ES2L

 

[bruceb]

You may be able to force it .. see link .. Note: IRQ 7 is normally for LPT 1

http://www.helpwithpcs.com/upgrading/change-irq-settings.htm

 

[Lorne]

Yeah thought it would go that route, The systems are brand new workstation and they dont support IRQ placement in the bios.
The software we need to use calls IRQ 7 spacific for a dongle and the add-on pci-parallel uses IRQ 16-21 even if you can set it to LPT1 in the device settings.
Works fine for printers.

Some of these PCI-Para cards have old jumper echings and I wonder if there still active if I solder them over.

 

[Lorne]

Was informed there is a way for win7 to force devices to spacific IRQ but will ask this in the OS department.