Darn the luck of things, just got a visioneer 3100 for free and a HP 3500cse for 50. Bought the audigy and got messed up video on my new Sharp Camcorder. Could have solved all three with this little beaut. Thanks for the posts, might just have to try to help the market a little bit more.
Deal is still good so I thought I'd post a follow-up. I tried for weeks to get this thing to work with 2K and never got even a sign of life. I did everything you could imagine. At one point, I even climbed inside the registry where I wandered for hours (or maybe years) cleaning up traces of previus Umax scanners, etc. No go.
Finally I broke down in defeat and installed a clean XP pro and the trendy European drivers. Most of the items in the device manager are now the firewire card. There are countless different categories that contain the firewire card like "1394 something", and "something 1394" and "firewire something" and.... All of the firewire cards seem to work ok except for the one in the "network adapters" category.
The scanner works about 3 times out of 4 (a fantastic improvement over my old 5470), and is pretty slow to get started (very slow to start at high resolutions), but always very fast to scan. A 4x6 photo at 1200dpi takes maybe 3 seconds of actual scanning time after a mandatory 30 sec. waiting period. It's really fast. Resolution is fantastic - much better than the 1200x600 Umax 5470 I replaced, but the colors are pretty muddy.
Here's some scans of my house with the old 5470 and the 6400. Note how much sharper the post and address number is with the 6400 scan but the blue is much more vibrant with the old 5470. If you can read the address, feel free to stop by any time.
Possibly the best feature about this scanner is that unlike all the lousy USB and SCSI scanners I have owned, this one doesn't need to be on when the computer boots! Woo hoo! Just turn it on and scan whenever you like! And it often works!
I get all the same symptoms as tommyli including the frequent and hard lock-ups with this clean XP install. But the lock-ups seem more related to Outlook Express and Windows Explorer and seem to have greatly increased in frequency since I ran the Office XP activation hack (which didn't work for SP-1, B.T.W.). I also get a Shell_NotifyIcon Fail error from the scanner taskbar icon if the scanner is on when I boot, and my volume control seldom appears on the taskbar anymore. All in all, this is the most reliable and trouble-free scanner I have ever owned (IOW, it's a major POS, but just barely usable - so it's really great in comparison). Recommended.
Finally I broke down in defeat and installed a clean XP pro and the trendy European drivers. Most of the items in the device manager are now the firewire card. There are countless different categories that contain the firewire card like "1394 something", and "something 1394" and "firewire something" and.... All of the firewire cards seem to work ok except for the one in the "network adapters" category.
The scanner works about 3 times out of 4 (a fantastic improvement over my old 5470), and is pretty slow to get started (very slow to start at high resolutions), but always very fast to scan. A 4x6 photo at 1200dpi takes maybe 3 seconds of actual scanning time after a mandatory 30 sec. waiting period. It's really fast. Resolution is fantastic - much better than the 1200x600 Umax 5470 I replaced, but the colors are pretty muddy.
Here's some scans of my house with the old 5470 and the 6400. Note how much sharper the post and address number is with the 6400 scan but the blue is much more vibrant with the old 5470. If you can read the address, feel free to stop by any time.
Possibly the best feature about this scanner is that unlike all the lousy USB and SCSI scanners I have owned, this one doesn't need to be on when the computer boots! Woo hoo! Just turn it on and scan whenever you like! And it often works!
I get all the same symptoms as tommyli including the frequent and hard lock-ups with this clean XP install. But the lock-ups seem more related to Outlook Express and Windows Explorer and seem to have greatly increased in frequency since I ran the Office XP activation hack (which didn't work for SP-1, B.T.W.). I also get a Shell_NotifyIcon Fail error from the scanner taskbar icon if the scanner is on when I boot, and my volume control seldom appears on the taskbar anymore. All in all, this is the most reliable and trouble-free scanner I have ever owned (IOW, it's a major POS, but just barely usable - so it's really great in comparison). Recommended.
I've determined my hardware lockups were due to perhaps a IRQ conflict.
I have since stabilized my system by switching PCI slots.... hmm this card doesn't seem to be very PCI 2.1 compliant (sharing of IRQ's). Also I found that this card is very sensitive to BUS SPEED overclocking.
My CPU which ran fine at 138mhz DDR bus before.. now can only do 133mhz no matter weht I do.
I did not HOWEVER, fix the exclamation mark in NETWORK ADAPTORS showing "1394 net adapter".
I read around, and it supposedly has to do with the firewire card acting as essentially a NETWORK of peripherals. but still there is no logical explanation to why it's not configured properly.
Nevertheless the scanner works 10 out of 10 times... not a single fail yet. the drivers 3.76 from the German website are super stable.. my only complaint is the BLUE-GREENISH tint on some pictures.
I'm not afraid to say that my EPSON scanner produced better scans (better contrast and color reproduction). The Umax is seriously lacking contrast but the color is pretty close to EPSON qulaity (I tend to use Epson scanners as a benchmark).
Speed is very good.. atleast 2-3 faster than my Epson 636U. (Considered fast).
I'm still playing with color profiles... which might help in the contrast/color area. If anyone has any suggestions, please post it!
Still... one of my best buys all year. (My last one was a Maxtor 40GB 7200rpm 15 platter drive about a year ago for 80 USD!!)... and my other ofcousre was the EPSON 636U CompUSA deal.
Tommy
I have since stabilized my system by switching PCI slots.... hmm this card doesn't seem to be very PCI 2.1 compliant (sharing of IRQ's). Also I found that this card is very sensitive to BUS SPEED overclocking.
My CPU which ran fine at 138mhz DDR bus before.. now can only do 133mhz no matter weht I do.
I did not HOWEVER, fix the exclamation mark in NETWORK ADAPTORS showing "1394 net adapter".
I read around, and it supposedly has to do with the firewire card acting as essentially a NETWORK of peripherals. but still there is no logical explanation to why it's not configured properly.
Nevertheless the scanner works 10 out of 10 times... not a single fail yet. the drivers 3.76 from the German website are super stable.. my only complaint is the BLUE-GREENISH tint on some pictures.
I'm not afraid to say that my EPSON scanner produced better scans (better contrast and color reproduction). The Umax is seriously lacking contrast but the color is pretty close to EPSON qulaity (I tend to use Epson scanners as a benchmark).
Speed is very good.. atleast 2-3 faster than my Epson 636U. (Considered fast).
I'm still playing with color profiles... which might help in the contrast/color area. If anyone has any suggestions, please post it!
Still... one of my best buys all year. (My last one was a Maxtor 40GB 7200rpm 15 platter drive about a year ago for 80 USD!!)... and my other ofcousre was the EPSON 636U CompUSA deal.
Tommy
IRQ sharing huh?
I put my card on IRQ 5. It's the only thing on IRQ 5 except for my network card, SCSI controller, IDE RAID controller, SBLive, TNT video, and a couple of USB controllers. I asked Bill if I should change the 1394 card to a different IRQ and he told me that I was a nit wit and could not be trusted to pick IRQ's on my own. I'll take his advice - I always do.
I put my card on IRQ 5. It's the only thing on IRQ 5 except for my network card, SCSI controller, IDE RAID controller, SBLive, TNT video, and a couple of USB controllers. I asked Bill if I should change the 1394 card to a different IRQ and he told me that I was a nit wit and could not be trusted to pick IRQ's on my own. I'll take his advice - I always do.
For some reason I too get the exclamation points in the device manager but the scanner works perfectly.
I have been running this for about a year now and love it. I did opt for the paint shop pro as it seems to be alot easier to use. i still have the photoshop loaded though. If anyone figures out how to set the scan to outlook express instead of defaulting to outlook 2000 let me know.
I have been running this for about a year now and love it. I did opt for the paint shop pro as it seems to be alot easier to use. i still have the photoshop loaded though. If anyone figures out how to set the scan to outlook express instead of defaulting to outlook 2000 let me know.
Technogeek
Senior member
- Jun 10, 2001
- 708
- 0
- 76
As mentioned before, this firewire card is extremely sensitive to FSB (Front Side Bus) changes. I run my system at the 83MHZ FSB (overclocked) and the scanner can not handle it. Scanned images have miss-colored dashes. In that hi-res comparison the image on the left is scanned at the 66MHZ FSB, and the one on the right at 83MHZ.
I solved the probem on my system by using SoftFSB to change bus speeds on the fly, but this application does not support all motherboards, and creates an extra step.
Overall the scanner is good quality and very fast, the 3 dedicated buttons are nice as well. Its a pitty the firewire card can't handle the 83MHZ bus
I solved the probem on my system by using SoftFSB to change bus speeds on the fly, but this application does not support all motherboards, and creates an extra step.
Overall the scanner is good quality and very fast, the 3 dedicated buttons are nice as well. Its a pitty the firewire card can't handle the 83MHZ bus
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