LaserSoft Imaging

Hello,

After i got a problem with Silverfast on not finding my SCSI Nikon LS30, i did a few investigations and found out the following wich is maybe important to some of you too.

I have three scanners,
a Epson 1680pro connected over USB,
a Minolta Dimage Scan Elite 5400 connected over Firewire
and a Nikon LS30 connected over SCSI.

There where some quirks to get things going and i gonna tell you how i got my things to work

My Computer is a Powermac G4 1,25 MDD with 1,75 Gb RAM.
SCSI card was (before) a Adaptec AVA 2906

1)
First after this misbehavior of the system, i replaced the 2906 SCSI card with a Adaptec 2930CU wich i had at home from my old AGP Graphite.
Bingo, systemprofiler from now recognized the scanner and it shows up as Nikon COOLSCAN III under "SCSI devices".

2)
The Nikon itself works fine BUT, when the Minolta on Firewire AND the Nikon over SCSI is on at the same time, none of them can be found from Silverfast or from the Dimagescan software! So the reason for this strange "scanner not found" errors must be deep in the secret of handling SCSI and Firewire (used at the same time) in OS X!

3) WORKING SETUP:
Minolta connected over USB (incredibly slooow)
Epson connected over USB (wondering why, but much faster as Minolta on USB)
Nikon connected over SCSI

4) NOT WORKING SETUP:
Minolta connected over Firewire (scanner was not found, initialisation failed with Silverfast)
Epson connected over USB (works allways fine)
Nikon connected over SCSI (one time initialisation tooks about 3 minutes, another time i got "scanner not found" errors)

Resume:
I leave the Minolta plugged on Firewire but have to turn on or off the slide scanner i want to use BEFORE i startup the Mac. This is at least a solution i can live with instead of plug and unplug the scanners each time i start my system...

I hope this helps some of you!
greetings
wolke

EDIT:
Anyone a idea if a USB 2.0 card will work at better speed or at least as fast as Firewire for the Minolta?

Add on:

I bought a 4 port USB 2.0 card for my Mac (with NEC chip on it, i tried another one with a VIA chip without success) and every thing is fine now. Today i got the Nikon, Epson and Minolta running power on, without any problem. My personal conclusion is that it seems important to have the devices on individual busses to work properly!

My experiences are valid for G4 MDD 1,25 computers, the cards may not work on G5s!

BTW. not much response to my problems, anyone at home?

greetings
wolke