Nikon 5000ED flaky behavior with VueScan & Nikon Scan

  • Thread starter Thread starter Gary L Hunt
  • Start date Start date
G

Gary L Hunt

Just replaced my 4000ED scanner with a 5000ED, and the new one is acting
strange:
- quits responding for 30-60 seconds every few minutes (calibrattion?)
- doesn't notice if you change the slide too quickly (skips focus & auto-
exposure in Nikon Scan)
- Both Nikon Scan (4.0.1)and VueScan scan some slides with an offset in the
scan direction (~1/8 inch), have to put them in upside-down to get it all
- Nikon Scan consistently produces upside-down scan with one (and only
one) slide, VueScan 7.6.84 refuses to scan the entire area of that slide
- VueScan won't start scanning every 2nd or 3rd slide until I "abort"
and try again, then it scans only 2/3 of the slide (with crop area set
to "maximum")
- VueScan hangs when I try to close it, Nikon Scan crashes every hour or so

I suspect a communication problem of some sort, because both programs worked
fine with the 4000ED (FireWire). Scanner is connected to a P4 3 GHz machine
with 1.5 GB RAM, using a USB2 port on an Intel motherboard (which shows no
signs of quirks with other peripherals including an Epson 2450 scanner.)

Any suggestions greatly appreciated--I need to figure out if the scanner is
defective or maybe it's an interface problem of some sort.

Gary Hunt
 
Try a different USB-2 cable.
Are both scanners still installed on the same machine ? NikonScan may
have some strange behavior if they are (certainly if both are powered
on). Did you completely delete and remove the old NS associated with the
4000 before you installed the 5000 ? Can't explain Vuescan as it
directly addresses the scanner. Try installing another copy of Vuescan
to a different directory and see if that changes the behavior.

Frank
 
degrub said:
Try a different USB-2 cable.
Are both scanners still installed on the same machine ? NikonScan may
have some strange behavior if they are (certainly if both are powered
on). Did you completely delete and remove the old NS associated with the
4000 before you installed the 5000 ? Can't explain Vuescan as it
directly addresses the scanner. Try installing another copy of Vuescan
to a different directory and see if that changes the behavior.

Frank
Click to expand...

Sorry about the delay--I made the mistake of trying to get something out of
Nikon Tech Support. What a waste. (They suggested I unplug my SCSI cable
and run the self-test--pretty hard for a USB scanner.) When I got the 5000,
I moved the 4000 to a different computer and then uninstalled and reinstalled
Nikon Scan. (I had not installed the 5000 drivers as part of the original
install.) After several more days (and several hundred scans), the quirks
are still there, but I'm working around them. I simply cannot put a slide in
the scanner until it recognizes that the old one is gone (several seconds),
and then I have to wait for it to tell the software that it's ready--several
more seconds. When this happens, the Nikon Scan display blinks and then comes
back, and it's ready to go.

If I don't scan anything for several minutes, or I do something else, when
I go back to Nikon Scan, the scanner seems to run an auto-calibration more
often than not--or something that takes 40 seconds, during which time Nikon
Scan is "frozen". Then it comes back and goes on as though nothing has
happened. So the end result is that it is actually slower to do intermittent
scanning with the 5000 than with my 4000, which doesn't do any of these things.

Armed with the knowledge that the scanner can't be rushed, I tried VueScan
again and it seems to work, as long as I don't try to start a new scan before
the file is saved from the previous one. But it takes about 2 minutes per
scan, including infrared cleaning and saving a 4000 dpi JPG, while Nikon Scan
takes less than 90 seconds. Not much, I know, but I still have 20,000 more
slides to scan. And I don't seem to be able to get the colors adjusted as
well in VueScan, for whatever reason.

Anyway, I still think it's a communication problem, and I will try another
USB cable--but I really don't understand this frequent auto-calibration (if
that's what it's doing when it goes away 40 seconds at a time.)

Gary Hunt
 
Gary L Hunt wrote:

I suspect a communication problem of some sort, because both programs worked
fine with the 4000ED (FireWire). Scanner is connected to a P4 3 GHz machine
with 1.5 GB RAM, using a USB2 port on an Intel motherboard (which shows no
signs of quirks with other peripherals including an Epson 2450 scanner.)
Click to expand...
Gary Hunt
Click to expand...


Are both scanners hooked up on the same USB port?

Try the scanner 'alone' on one USB port.
 
You Cannot Simultaneously Use Multiple USB Scanners in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;324756&Product-winxp
Click to expand...

I'm sucessfully running a Nikon LS5000 ED AND a HP5470c flat bed and
can run both at the same time. I've had my wife come in and scan
something on the 5470 while I had the LS5000 running. Slows them both
down as NikonScan is a real CPU hog, but they coexist just fine.

Yes you can run multiple USB scanners in Windows XP at the same time
"IF both do not use windows XP's native USB drivers"
You can *probably* do so if one or both have their own drivers rather
than using XP's drivers.

I have not tried using ViewScan on the LS5000 ED while the 5470c was
running.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com
 
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