help, out of ideas

  • Thread starter Thread starter marsboy
  • Start date Start date
M

marsboy

Running a Compaq IJ600 printer on a 4 year old Compaq Presario,
Win98SE. With every attempt to print, receive a Printer Not
Ready/Cannot Communicate With Printer message. Uninstalled and
reinstalled software, drivers. Even bought a new printer cable.
Checked in System, no errors reported, printer port claims to be o.k.
It's been two months since this began out of nowhere, I've Googled
myself bloody looking for a solution. It's begun to affect my
marriage. Please.
 
The bad news is Compaq printers are made by Lexmark, and their drivers
tend to be less than robust.

Make sure you have the most current Compaq or Lexmark drivers installed
for that printer for the correct operating system. Try to avoid using
the "in box" drivers supplied by Windows 98SE, if your have the proper
ones from the printer company.

Go to "my computer" and double click on printers, and make sure the
printer you are wishing to connect to shows an icon, and that it is
listed as the default printer. The default printer has a black circle
with a check mark over it. If you have several printers showing, and
the Compaq is not checked, double click on the icon and when the window
opens up click on printer and select "Set as default" from the drop down
menu.

Next, you need go to my computer Control Panel, to System, and then go
into system properties/device manager, and under Ports (COM and LPT)
double click on the printer port (Probably LPT1) (or click on the
properties button after highlighting the printer port) and go to
resources and take a look at the listings there. Make sure there are no
conflicts indicated with the IRQ interrupt request. It is often 07. If
there is a conflict, you have to fix it. The printer needs its own IRQ
(interrupt). To check further for conflicts close the LPT1 resources,
and go to the device manager again, and highlight "computer" at the top
and click on properties again. This will show all the resources in use
including a list of the IRQs and make sure no other peripherals or cards
are also using the same IRQ the printer LPT1 port is using.

Other possible problems are a bad parallel port (can you run this
printer via USB?) or incorrect settings for the port in the bios.


Art
 
Thanks Arthur. Unfortunately, your good advice couldn't help me out.
I'm still getting the same result: cannot communicate with printer.
On the bright side, I'm saving a fortune on ink.
 
Sorry I can't help further. Lexmark drivers can be very difficult.
Also, there may be another product conflicting with the printer driver,
even a worm or virus.

I just recently ended up with a browser hijacking on my system, which
took me days to remove fully. It prevented my system from being able to
be shut down without a manual end task, and it would not allow me to
download images from my digital camera to the system either. Some of
this mal-code breaks things even the writer didn't envision.

Art
 
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