artjet 12 always "disconnected or turned off"

[Lobster]

Hello,

a friend of mine called me yesterday telling me its printer
(Olivetti artjet 12) was not working any longer, according
to him it stopped working in the middle of a printing.

The system (Win2000) keeps saying "the printer is disconnected
or turned off", the printer is obviously both connected and
turned on.

I thought there could be a problem with the printer itself or
with the cable from the printer to the LPT port. I moved the
printer with its cable to my PC (always Win2000) and it
works perfectly.

I uninstalled and reinstalled the printer drivers several
times, both the version on the CD coming with the printer
and a newer version downloaded from internet but it keeps
saying "the printer is disconnected or turned off".

I thought there could be a hardware problem with the LPT
port and, as the printer as a USB port as well, I tried to
install the drivers telling I wanted to use the USB port.
Nothing changed, Win2000 keeps saying the printer is
disconnected or turned off.

What else can i do?

Regards,
Lobster

 

[Lobster]

Just in case someone else has got the same problem.

On that PC USB had never been installed, this is why
the printer looked "disconnected or turned off" when
connected to the USB port.

I installed the USB driver and now it works perfectly.
The parallel port doesn't work as it is probably broken.

I solved the problem installing drivers for HP Deskjet
3940. Luckily HP's installation software is not as
stupid as the Olivetti's one, it gave me a sensible
error message which led me to the problem resolution.

Regards,
Lobster