Epson has lots of computer servers, but no FAXBACK support for my new 805Z camera. Impossible to get through on the payfor support line also...I waited for 10, 17, and 29 minutes on hold and gave up...it's not nice to sell products and not have tech support available:(

I got this camera for a B'day present last week...it works great, but there's one problem that has no answer yet.

The camera works as advertised communicating with my SuperMac S900L G3 using the serial port, but using the USB cable from camera to S900 crashes the system every time.

The S900 has an Interex/XLR8 OCHI compliant USB PCI card that powers several devices without problems. My boot drive has V1.4.1 Apple USB drivers, the latest, installed. A USB scanner, scrolling mouse, and ZIP drive work AOK with this card...never had any issues with USB til this camera.

I tried various flavors of USB PCI card drivers...Apple's drivers(1.4.1,1.3.5, 1.2.1), Interex(XLR8) drivers, to no avail.

Again, every other USB device I own works perfect with my system...ZIP drive, USB CDRW, scanner, Interex USB Scrolling Mouse...but not this camera.

Very annoying...serial downloads take forver...USB would be 10X times as fast...I know the best answer is getting a USB card reader but I'm going to return the camera if I can't get this advertised working feature to function.

Any help would be appreciated.

thanks, David

-- David Campbell (rexrzer@gte.net), April 26, 2000

Answers

I'm not sure if this is applicable, but I seem to recall seeing posts by others, possibly concerning USB on a PC, that mentioned trying the camera without a hub or any other peripherals connected up at the same time. Apparently some USB components don't work well together or simply aren't as fond of sharing as others? :-) Might be worth a try?

Good Luck. Wish I could do more than take a shot in the dark.

-- Gerald M. Payne (gmp@francomm.com), April 26, 2000.

I appreciate the thought, and that's the first thing I did...disconnect everything including the USB mouse*sorry if I didn't make this clear* but I am Mac/PC savvy, and I thought perhaps someone that owned an Epson 805Z would comment on the issue of USB connectivity.

I can solve/isolate/fix any hardware or software issue with my SuperMac S900L G3, an amazing multimedia machine that I will not bore this group describing suffice to say I would not trade it for any G3/G4-6PCI slots rule!...there's apparantly no answer yet for this USB issue I have...appears to be a driver problem with the camera.

I called Sierra Imaging, maker of the camera to Mac "Image Ready" program, and the Rep suggested it was an Epson USB driver issue. Since the program works 100% with the serial port, I agreed with the Rep.

Perhaps Epson will shed some light on the issue via email today. I emailed Epson Tech Support on Monday.

After reading other topics/threads in this great forum, it's obvious that Nikon, Epson, and other camera makers don't offer live human support for digital cameras.

That's a shame.

Thanks for the answer, anyway:)

later, David

-- David Campbell (rexrzer@gte.net), April 26, 2000.

I use OS9 on my powerbook for USB -> camera, works pretty good. It's a sony not an Epson, but I can't help but wonder if switching to OS9 might help you. Once you do go to control panels -> software update to get even newer drivers. The Idisk alone is worth the OS9 upgrade. :)

-- benoit (noemail@noemail.com), April 26, 2000.

I have an Epson 850Z and a Power Mac G3/450 running OS9 and have had no problems using the Epson on my USB port. I upgraded to OS9 before buying the Epson so can't tell you if it would work on my machine with OS 8.6. If you really need to know, e-mail me privately. I have OS 8.6 installed on a second drive and can boot off it to test.

-- Darron Spohn (dspohn@photobitstream.com), April 26, 2000.

Problem resolved/case closed. The camera works fine:)

Let this be a lesson to those with USB...don't baby your Mac!

Darron's answer was to hot swap the camera...don't sleep the Mac (I was treating it like serial...a no-no!) with USB...USB only recognizes things via hot swap or cold boot....

I turned on the camera, hot plugged it, opened Image Ready and it recognized. Works with and without everything else USB plugged in.

Thanks so much for this forum....I'll be attending it quietly for a while, lurking around, and learning as much as I can from all the pros and interesting people I've been reading from today. Great stuff online here.

This Epson 850Z rocks.../my apologies to Epson...perhaps the camera's so bulletproof that there's no need for live humans in tech support, especially since I have all of you...now I can spend some $ on accessories....look out MasterCard.

later, David

-- David Campbell (rexrzer@gte.net), April 27, 2000.

I have just bought a Casio QV8000SX, I have a pre-usb G3 so I got a PCI USB card but this just locks up the mac on restart. Reading this and other digital camera forums I think that USB is not yet the complete answer, anybody got any ideas about the lockup or am I doomed forever. Also does anybody know if I can get a serial cable for the camera to plug in the mac?.

-- Bob Hardy (rhardy@welcom.co.uk), December 12, 2000.