Scanner problems

[moneypenny]

Hi I have a mictrotec V6USL scanner which has worked for the past 4 years without much trouble. Last week I took my PC in for a memory upgrade and since then the PC recognises that a scanner should be installed but the scanner detector cannot cannot find it. The scanner was installed on a SCS1 but also also supports USB. I have uninstalled and reinstalled both on SCS1 and USB .........nothing.

The guy that upgraded the memory says it must be coincidence as a memory upgrade could not affect the scanner.

In device manager I cannot find the scanner, I have a yellow buy PCI communications device what does this mean?

On a few previous occassions when the PC could not find the scanner I had to unplug from the mains and reconnect and it would spring to life but that isn't working this time.

Can anyone help.

 

[shenks]

PCI communications device

This is probably an internal PCI modem or similar and not necessarily related to your scanner problem.

Of course it does beg the question was this present before the memory upgrade? If not then something other than memory has been touched, maybe the internal modem removed to insert the extra memory (finger space can be tight sometimes) and then repalced in a different PCI slot?

If you are on Windows 98 then this can result in IRQ assignment issues related to the physical placement of PCI cards. A conflict with the SCSI card that the scanner is plugged into, or maybe if the scanner is on USB then the PCI conflicts with the IRQs for this?

Not an easy problem to diagnose remotely so this may only haven given you (or your engineer guy) some pointers. Since you got somebody else to do the memory upgrade, which is normally a 5 minute job, then I can only assume you are not confident in the 'mysterious inner workings' of your PC - no shame about this (and sorry if I am wrong ).

If it was all working before the memory upgrade then strictly speaking it is the responsibility of the guy who did the upgrade to sort it out.

 

[moneypenny]

Yes you are right it was a 5 min job and I did intend doing it myself even though I know very little about the inner workings of a PC, but when I went to purchase the new memory he offered to do it for me whilst I waited for £25. I watched him do it and he certainly didn't interfere with the SCS1 card it is a large tower with plenty of room. He replaced the fan too for £10, and yes I am on windows 98SE.

However the following day my PC wouldn't POST, he said the memory was probably faulty and he would fix it which he did quite promptly, no charge, frankly he could have told me it was anything and charged so I figured the guy was straight enough. So when he told me the new memory couldn't have caused the problem with the scanner I was inclined to believe him, but you are right it was working until he had it so he could at least have a look. Don't fancy humping this tower down again though!!

This PC is 5 years old and a bit of a dinosaur but it did what I needed. However, I might have to cut my losses and get a new one, would love to be able to fix this scanner though .

 

[breezer]

its a bit of a sticky one this, yes it did work before new memory, but i agree new memory will not stop anything from working, unless memory is no good, in which case pc wont work.


remove all drivers for scanner, then plug it in via usb, it should then ask for drivers

 

[eggplant]

So when he told me the new memory couldn't have caused the problem with the scanner

but i agree new memory will not stop anything from working

GOOD new memory of course wont affect anything, however faulty memory can and does cause no end of problems ranging from pc not booting to random errors, data corruption etc.
theres no system restore on 9X, but restoring a previous good registry might do the job, reboot the pc, during boot tap on the F8 key, when you get a start menu, select dos mode, on the dos screen, put scanreg /restore, you will get a list of the last 5 times the pc booted, hopefully there will be one prior to this problem occuring, if so, select it.
Failing that, reseat pci cards, reinstall your scanner/scsi card (SCSI - I not 1 !!) also as mentioned check under modems as a pci coms device is often a modem.
Unsure what else to advise, the thing is, it was working prior to the upgrade, and now its not, in theory it would indicate that the upgrade had caused it, I cant believe a reputable firm would replace ram and not run a mem test on it, I always do, for reasons already discussed, at least that way you simply CANT blame the ram, all too many chuck a new stick of ram in and off you go sonny - not in my book!

 

[moneypenny]

If I click on the + by SCSI controllers in device manager I get by PCI comm device.

Tried scanreg/restore saved me on previous occasions didn't work this time.

Deleted drivers and tried USB no good.

 

[shenks]

If I click on the + by SCSI controllers in device manager I get by PCI comm device.

A SCSI card should show as a 'mass storage controller' or something similar if I remember correctly (long time since I looked at a PC with Win98) - but then again I might be wrong!

Either way, the fact it has a means that Windows cannot initialise the device and if reloading drivers doesn't work then it will be something similar to resource allocation problems (IRQs etc.). Or alternatively Windows itself may be corrupted and require a re-installation - the USB problem may support this theory too.

It may be worth booting into safe mode and then going into device manager and removing all SCSI entries, and also any USB scanner entries. You may find there are quite a few duplicates there which can't be seen when you are not in safe mode. Then reboot normally and let windows find the drivers again.

Windows 98(SE) is a complete pain in these situations, the only OS that was worse was Windows Millenium

Sorry if we are not being very helpful, but it is difficult to diagnose problems remotely and it's a long time since my Windows 98 days!

 

[moneypenny]

I wll give it a go, you are all very helpfull thanks.

 

[moneypenny]

My scanner is working reseated SCSI card and downloaded driver sorted. Thanks all.

 

[eggplant]

My scanner is working icon_lol.gif reseated SCSI card

which would indeed indicate it had been knocked and therefore the shops "fault", anyways, its sorted and no doubt you learnt something on the way.

 

[breezer]

I dissagree.

since the problem was cured by re seating the card, it would imply it was not seated 100% in the first place.

since the whole tower went to the shop, it probably came "unseated" on the way there or back

but we will never know