I just can't turn loose of this issue. I tried the MFC on my Dell Poweredge T-20 server. It has both USB 2 and 3 ports. The scanner works fine on the USB 2 ports. And then, just for the halibut, I went back to the Inspiron 3050 Micro test PC. It dawned on me that the box has two USB 2 ports on the back - which I use for mouse and keyboard and a 2 and a 3 on the side. I had been using the free USB 2 port on the side for testing. I wondered what would happen if I connected the scanner to one of the side by side USB 2 ports. I swapped the keyboard to the side port and the scanner to the back. Guess what? That did not work either. That PC and the scanner are just mutually exclusive. I guess that is a good thing. If it had worked I would be offering the MFC on ebay - with only a few bullet holes

Ken

It gets better

I am now working on my SECOND new Dell Precision T3620 Workstation in 3 weeks (see my thread "Never get out of the boat" re. my first one). I am currently in the process of wiping two Seagate FireCuda 2 TB hard drives which failed the SMART Self-test right out of the box. And I am also working on the Ancient MFC project again...

My current CentOS 6 machine has only USB 2.0 ports which work fine with the MFC as mentioned earlier. I had added a USB 3.0 card as 2.0 is too slow for external hard drives etc. I decided to plug the MFC into the USB 3.0 card. It did not work - sort of expected. Plugged it back into a 2.0 port and I was a scanning fool. Now I start thinking (dangerous).

The new machine has a legacy PCI (not express) slot - not sure why. I searched evilbay and found a PCI USB 2.0 card for $5 US delivered. I ordered it and it arrived today. I plugged the card in and ran the Brother install script. Print function works as it always has. I added my user account to group "lp" and tried xsane. If found the MFC. So far, so good. I then hit the scan button. Bzzzzzzzz The scanner started scanning!!!!!

Now I just need to get a working 2 TB drive for a project I am working on and finish configuring the new machine, load data, test etc...

Once more ferrari allow me to offer my thanks for your help and motivation as I worked on this seemingly intractable problem.

Ken

I admire your persistence with this. Glad to have been a source of motivation.