Lexmark 5470 Communication

  • Thread starter Thread starter John
  • Start date Start date
J

John

My mate bought this combined printer, fax, scanner and uses it with a Dell
Laptop.

Everytime he switches off or disconnects he is having to reload the software
as he gets a message saying "Problem Communicating with Printer".

Any suggestions - I have tried loading without firewall and virus software.
It prints fine until disconnecting - then back to square one.


John
 
John,

I had the same issue with a Lexmark X6170. There are two separate issues
that you must deal with in correctly installing the printer drivers: a
"clean installation," and anti-virus software deactivation.

Are you installing the software drivers using "safe mode" or a "clean
installation" with MSConfig? If so, and you are loading the new software
with the system file, Win.ini deactivated, the newly installed Lexmark
software will work correctly only until you reboot your PC. The system
reboot overwrites Win.ini created by the driver installation with the
original system, Win.ini. (Lexmark software installations add new and
essential parameters to this file.)

The correct procedure is to use "selective startup" in MSConfig, but leave
the "Process Win.ini" option checked and everything else unchecked. (Some
printer driver installations work in "safe mode," but this doesn't work on
my computer because neither the Win.ini file nor the CD ROM drivers get
loaded in "safe mode" with W98SE).

Regarding your anti-virus: You should deactivate your anti-virus and reboot
from a power off shutdown (leave the computer off completely for at least 5
seconds). With Norton AV, you go into the options dialogue, select the
"start-up" tab, and uncheck the "Load auto-start at start-up" box. You will
get a pop-up box asking you if you want to unload NAV now. Answer "yes."
Then shut down the computer for at least 5 seconds. Note that just
selecting "disable" from the right context menu using the system tray (NAV)
icon, does not work!!

The reason why you have to do this is that Lexmark, probably unethically,
installs a spyware trigger in your system boot records. This is why you must
deactivate your anti-virus for a successful installation. If you are
concerned with the "spyware" Lexmark installs on your computer to report
back "usage" statistics, state so in your reply to this and I will write
back how I did this in a separate posting.

If nothing else is wrong, you should get a successful installation with NO
error messages popping up. Despite what everyone seems to think about
Lexmark - at least in this newsgroup- my X6170 works perfectly since I
finally worked out how to install the software drivers. (It took me about a
year with no help from Lexmark tech support.)

Harry.
 
-HNN- said:
John,

I had the same issue with a Lexmark X6170. There are two separate issues
that you must deal with in correctly installing the printer drivers: a
"clean installation," and anti-virus software deactivation.

Are you installing the software drivers using "safe mode" or a "clean
installation" with MSConfig? If so, and you are loading the new software
with the system file, Win.ini deactivated, the newly installed Lexmark
software will work correctly only until you reboot your PC. The system
reboot overwrites Win.ini created by the driver installation with the
original system, Win.ini. (Lexmark software installations add new and
essential parameters to this file.)

The correct procedure is to use "selective startup" in MSConfig, but leave
the "Process Win.ini" option checked and everything else unchecked. (Some
printer driver installations work in "safe mode," but this doesn't work on
my computer because neither the Win.ini file nor the CD ROM drivers get
loaded in "safe mode" with W98SE).

Regarding your anti-virus: You should deactivate your anti-virus and
reboot
from a power off shutdown (leave the computer off completely for at least
5
seconds). With Norton AV, you go into the options dialogue, select the
"start-up" tab, and uncheck the "Load auto-start at start-up" box. You
will
get a pop-up box asking you if you want to unload NAV now. Answer "yes."
Then shut down the computer for at least 5 seconds. Note that just
selecting "disable" from the right context menu using the system tray
(NAV)
icon, does not work!!

The reason why you have to do this is that Lexmark, probably unethically,
installs a spyware trigger in your system boot records. This is why you
must
deactivate your anti-virus for a successful installation. If you are
concerned with the "spyware" Lexmark installs on your computer to report
back "usage" statistics, state so in your reply to this and I will write
back how I did this in a separate posting.

If nothing else is wrong, you should get a successful installation with NO
error messages popping up. Despite what everyone seems to think about
Lexmark - at least in this newsgroup- my X6170 works perfectly since I
finally worked out how to install the software drivers. (It took me about
a
year with no help from Lexmark tech support.)

Harry.
Click to expand...
Many thanks - we will try the selective start-up. As novices, I would
appreciate any further tips (like how to do a selective start-up)

The PC has F-secure antivirus - which we did disable.
 
-HNN- said:
John,

I had the same issue with a Lexmark X6170. There are two separate issues
that you must deal with in correctly installing the printer drivers: a
"clean installation," and anti-virus software deactivation.

Are you installing the software drivers using "safe mode" or a "clean
installation" with MSConfig? If so, and you are loading the new software
with the system file, Win.ini deactivated, the newly installed Lexmark
software will work correctly only until you reboot your PC. The system
reboot overwrites Win.ini created by the driver installation with the
original system, Win.ini. (Lexmark software installations add new and
essential parameters to this file.)

The correct procedure is to use "selective startup" in MSConfig, but leave
the "Process Win.ini" option checked and everything else unchecked. (Some
printer driver installations work in "safe mode," but this doesn't work on
my computer because neither the Win.ini file nor the CD ROM drivers get
loaded in "safe mode" with W98SE).

Regarding your anti-virus: You should deactivate your anti-virus and
reboot
from a power off shutdown (leave the computer off completely for at least
5
seconds). With Norton AV, you go into the options dialogue, select the
"start-up" tab, and uncheck the "Load auto-start at start-up" box. You
will
get a pop-up box asking you if you want to unload NAV now. Answer "yes."
Then shut down the computer for at least 5 seconds. Note that just
selecting "disable" from the right context menu using the system tray
(NAV)
icon, does not work!!

The reason why you have to do this is that Lexmark, probably unethically,
installs a spyware trigger in your system boot records. This is why you
must
deactivate your anti-virus for a successful installation. If you are
concerned with the "spyware" Lexmark installs on your computer to report
back "usage" statistics, state so in your reply to this and I will write
back how I did this in a separate posting.

If nothing else is wrong, you should get a successful installation with NO
error messages popping up. Despite what everyone seems to think about
Lexmark - at least in this newsgroup- my X6170 works perfectly since I
finally worked out how to install the software drivers. (It took me about
a
year with no help from Lexmark tech support.)

Harry.
Click to expand...
Incidentally - the PC uses XP Home.

I don't see a need to be concerned about the spyware - unless you tell me
otherwise.
 
John,

Do you have Microsoft's "System Configuration Utility" on XP? (I'm still
using W98SE.)

You can find it in W98 by going to Start Menu>Accessories>System
Tools>System Information. Then select the "Tools" tab, then SCU. The menu
for System Configuration Utility lists the options for a "selective
startup."

Alternatively, you can enter "MsConfig" in the Start>Run box to bring up
SCU. Or even MSInfo32 to use the "Tools" tab to start SCU.

(Hopefully someone who is using XP will post any changes made since 98 but
you might try looking for this in the system help files first. Try looking
for "selective start," "System Configuration Utility," or "System
Information."

Regarding your following question: It's a good idea to control what gets
loaded or not loaded into your system on a reboot, when you install software
of any kind. A lot of stuff you install will automatically load things into
memory even if you hardly use the associated software. This unnecessarily
increases boot time, reduces available memory, and possibly increases other
minor problems and conflicts, with concommitant blue screens, etc.

For example, I also use a laptap as my main computer, and I don't want to
load my printer driver software unless I am actually going to use it. I
also don't want an assortment of miscellaneous programs connecting to the
web and reporting back to whomever for whatever. You can really slow down
your system with all this crap, not to mention the hassles you already have
with spyware, adware, anti-virus, anti-pasto, anti-this, and anti-that. (I
assume you already know about AdAware, Spybot Search & Destroy??). That is
why you should always check whether autostart programs have been installed
at the time of installation. One easy way to monitor your system is to
Google for Mike Lin's "Startup Control Panel." This is a freeware program
that lets you see whether any new autostart programs are entered into the
registry. (I just remembered the website: http://www.mlin.net but I don't
know if it's still there!! I'm using v2.8.)

Harry

p.s. If you remove programs (i.e., your printer software from auto-loading)
by using Startup Control Panel, all you have to do to load it is invoke ANY
software that needs it, and it will load at that time. If I use MS Paint,
or Kodak Imaging to scan something, I just press the appropriate software
buttons, and the printer copy/scan software will automatically load and run.
 
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