I recently acquired a Picstart Plus development system and have been having mucho problems getting it to work properly. At first I thought Mchip's software was full of bugs, until I learned that most people aren't having any problems. I am at a loss and hoping that someone on the list has had similar problems and fixed them. The symptoms: All I have to do is insert a blank 16C74 and perform the "BLANK CHECK ALL" operation. Sometimes the software reports that the device is blank, other times it reports that it is not. In the latter case, the yellow "ACTIVE" LED on the programmer does not light. The whole thing is very flakey. I have tried different COMM drivers (including the original one that came with Win 3.1) with little success. Programming and verify operations are also sporadic. On the surface, it looks like a communcations problem, but I think it is something else. MPLAB and the assembler are also giving me problems. To put it simply, these programs crash with such regularity that I cannot possibly do any development with them. I have tried two versions of the tool set: 3.01 and 3.09.10 with similar results. Now, since everybody out there seems to be happy with MPLAB and Picstart Plus, I can only suspect that my problems have something to do with my system configuration. Perhaps there is some outdated .DLL or something, but how can I tell? There are many possibilities and I can't think where to begin. If anybody out there in PIC-land has some insights into my problem, I would definitely appreciate hearing from you. Thanks in advance, - Barry Bine P.S. This is my system configuration (if it'll help): PCI/VLB combo motherboard with SIS chipset, Award BIOS, and EIDE I/O. Cyrix 5x86 120 CPU and 20 MB RAM. Number Nine "Motion 771" VLB vid card set to 1024X768 X 15-bit. Sigma Designs Winwave multimedia controller (SB & MPU 401 compatible w/ SCSI CD-ROM). DFI handy scanner. 8-bit Arcnet NIC, "Little Big Lan" network software. Logitech mouse. Windows 3.1 and DOS 6.0. ... that's all the relevent info I can think of. These are my .DLL's- In the WINDOWS directory: MORICONS DLL 118864 03-10-92 3:10a PBRUSH DLL 6766 03-10-92 3:10a RECORDER DLL 10414 03-10-92 3:10a MCIOLE DLL 12288 03-03-94 12:00a VYIOSVC2 DLL 9856 12-15-93 9:48a VMP_MM DLL 18912 12-03-93 2:32p MPEG320 DLL 110096 02-09-94 3:39p MPEG160 DLL 108560 02-09-94 3:39p MSND_MP2 DLL 54288 10-27-93 2:14p MSND_WAV DLL 13840 10-27-93 11:37a LOOKCHIP DLL 10256 02-10-93 12:00p DUNZIP DLL 35328 09-23-94 4:28p FX_METER DLL 6688 07-07-95 12:00p CTL3D DLL 20976 09-15-93 12:00a FX_GRAY DLL 76800 08-04-95 1:26p FWINSDLL DLL 120464 10-30-95 3:34p VER DLL 9008 03-23-92 3:10a AMIENV DLL 11208 02-04-93 7:06p In the WINDOWS/SYSTEM directory: LZEXPAND DLL 9936 03-10-92 3:10a VER DLL 9008 03-10-92 3:10a COMMDLG DLL 89248 03-10-92 3:10a DDEML DLL 36864 03-10-92 3:10a MMSYSTEM DLL 61648 03-10-92 3:10a OLESVR DLL 24064 03-10-92 3:10a SHELL DLL 41600 03-10-92 3:10a WIN87EM DLL 12800 03-10-92 3:10a OLECLI DLL 83456 03-10-92 3:10a TOOLHELP DLL 14128 12-28-94 12:00a WBTRCALL DLL 51392 12-10-93 3:00a FINSTALL DLL 200368 03-10-92 3:10a SETUPKIT DLL 7008 04-28-93 12:00a WINSOCK DLL 145152 11-03-94 2:57p MSAJT200 DLL 995056 11-18-94 12:00a BWCC DLL 164928 02-28-95 11:14a CTL3D DLL 26000 09-16-94 2:00p AAPLAY DLL 137232 06-15-93 9:58a AAVGA DLL 13840 06-15-93 9:58a DISPDIB DLL 7168 11-19-93 12:00a MSVIDEO DLL 121936 03-17-95 12:00a ACMCMPRS DLL 12800 11-19-93 12:00a AVICAP DLL 72704 09-02-94 12:00a AVIFILE DLL 96944 03-03-94 12:00a INTUPROF DLL 20208 01-11-96 12:00a MFCOLEUI DLL 146976 01-13-95 2:10p OLE2CONV DLL 57328 11-18-94 12:00a OLE2DISP DLL 164832 11-18-94 12:00a OLE2NLS DLL 150976 11-18-94 12:00a OLE2PROX DLL 51712 11-18-94 12:00a TYPELIB DLL 177216 11-18-94 12:00a MSACM DLL 49616 11-19-93 12:00a IR21_R DLL 77664 11-19-93 12:00a IR30 DLL 151552 03-27-95 12:00a PCDXBMP DLL 28016 07-19-93 12:00a PCDXEPS DLL 39244 07-19-93 12:00a PCDXPCX DLL 30776 07-19-93 12:00a PCDXTIF DLL 43444 07-19-93 12:00a PCDLIB DLL 84448 07-19-93 12:00a STORAGE DLL 157696 11-18-94 12:00a IR21 DLL 77664 11-19-93 12:00a IR32 DLL 151552 03-27-95 12:00a IYVU9 DLL 50016 09-21-94 12:00a DCIMAN DLL 7840 09-02-94 12:00a VBRUN300 DLL 398416 05-12-93 12:00a DMCOLOR DLL 18480 03-10-92 3:10a D2HTOOLS DLL 44464 07-07-95 2:12a WINGDE DLL 188960 08-24-94 12:00a WING DLL 92208 09-21-94 12:00a WING32 DLL 12800 09-21-94 12:00a CTVWCN DLL 2432 11-25-94 12:00a MVAPI2 DLL 12288 03-22-93 12:00a MVBMP2 DLL 138864 03-22-93 12:00a MVBRKR2 DLL 19968 03-22-93 12:00a MVFS2 DLL 52224 03-22-93 12:00a MVFTSUI2 DLL 160768 09-22-93 12:00a MVMCI2 DLL 93184 03-22-93 12:00a MVSRCH2 DLL 53760 03-22-93 12:00a MVTITLE2 DLL 24576 03-22-93 12:00a QCONNECT DLL 100192 01-11-96 12:00a WELCOME DLL 10535 01-18-95 12:00a UNIDRV DLL 128432 12-31-93 3:11a WINDAPI DLL 70208 04-14-93 2:59p FTENGINE DLL 43520 09-16-94 2:00p FTUI DLL 68096 09-16-94 2:00p MVAPI DLL 5120 09-16-94 2:00p CCAPI200 DLL 46400 09-16-94 2:00p CUECARD2 DLL 2944 09-16-94 2:00p QRYINTL DLL 35391 09-16-94 2:00p WINRFS DLL 14509 09-16-94 2:00p TECHNOTE DLL 14080 09-16-94 2:00p MFC250 DLL 320880 03-02-95 12:42a MFCN250 DLL 11072 01-13-95 2:10p MFC250D DLL 1910248 03-02-95 12:41a MFCN250D DLL 428268 01-13-95 2:10p MFCD250 DLL 51920 03-01-95 3:32a MFCD250D DLL 535992 03-01-95 3:30a MFCO250 DLL 125344 01-13-95 2:10p MFCO250D DLL 986756 01-13-95 2:10p COMPOBJ DLL 108544 11-18-94 12:00a MSCPXLT DLL 10304 07-12-94 12:00a MSJETERR DLL 11232 11-18-94 12:00a MSJETINT DLL 15936 11-18-94 12:00a ODBC DLL 56240 12-07-94 12:00a ODBCCURS DLL 88896 12-07-94 12:00a ODBCINST DLL 92576 12-07-94 12:00a ODBCJT16 DLL 246928 11-18-94 12:00a ODBCTL16 DLL 64080 11-18-94 12:00a ODDBSE16 DLL 4080 11-18-94 12:00a ODFOX16 DLL 4096 11-18-94 12:00a OLE2 DLL 302592 11-18-94 12:00a VBAJET DLL 1984 11-18-94 12:00a VBAR2 DLL 298880 11-18-94 12:00a XBS200 DLL 296832 11-18-94 12:00a CTL3DV2 DLL 26992 08-15-95 12:00a MVBK13W DLL 14512 11-29-95 12:00a MVCL13W DLL 119584 11-29-95 12:00a MVFS13W DLL 46112 11-29-95 12:00a MVMG13W DLL 46400 11-29-95 12:00a MVSR13W DLL 45232 11-29-95 12:00a MVTL13W DLL 40992 11-29-95 12:00a QBA DLL 23056 01-11-96 12:00a OWL252 DLL 484704 08-29-95 4:52a BIDS45 DLL 60758 08-29-95 4:52a BC450RTL DLL 220672 08-29-95 4:52a