Parallel to USB adapter?

[JayMan]

Hey all,

I'm in the middle of troubleshooting my girlfriends family's PC, basically their printer & scanner are not working.... I'm pretty sure its actually the parallel port on the motherboard which has died...

I have told the parents this, and that $ wise it would work out much the same to get a new printer & scanner that use the USB ports as it would for me to replace the motherboard. And timewise, the motherboard would take the longest, whereas setting up the new printer & scanner would be pretty quick.

The scanner is acouple years old now, and the printer is about 4-5 years old & plays up afair amount of the time anyways. So if it were my computer i'd just be replacing them with newer, better stuff. But i have a feeling they are gonna want to me replace the motherboard instead! And still use the old stuff.

I was just thinking, i have seen a parallel to USB adapter, would the printer & scanner both work with one of these adapters?

e.g.
Printer->Scanner->Adapter->Computer's USB port.

Thanks!

JayMan

[cadetstimp]

You could simply get a parallel port card just as cheap as the USB to parallel adaptor. Then you can be sure it will work. Just BIOS disable the on board LPT, plug in the card and then connect up to the new port! (BTW EPP mode is best when using a scanner)

Here's what I found

PCI Card

$9.99 PriceGrabber

http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_g...75d87e442bb3ad

$18.00 New Egg

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduc...82E16815104211

ISA Card $12.95 (just in case - not sure how old the system you're talking about is)

http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_g...75d87e442bb3ad

[DanU]

$4.95 ISA ECP/EPP parallel port:

http://www.softwareandstuff.com/h_comp_dtch.html

[JayMan]

doh! never even thought of getting a paralle port card! hehe

PCI is fine (I built PC about 18months ago, Athlon 1.1Ghz Tbird), tho the mobo does also have 1 ISA... Would their be any benifit of using ISA over PCI or vice verse.... I realise PCI will be faster, but would the parallel port even need to be faster than what ISA could handle?

JayMan

[JayMan]

Oh, and thanks for the links... But i think shipping would cost more than the actual cards! hehe (checkout my location!)

I can grab the cards locally easy enuff tho....

JayMan