Epson 950 Service Utility Problems

[Ian Kay]

Hi All

I may have screwed my fairly new (very expensive) Epson Photo 950. I was
playing around with a utility program "SSC Epson Service Utility Ver 2.91",
it claims to be able to reset ink counters, waste ink counter etc. It has a
set of functions labelled CSIC, supposed to reset the cartridge chips, for
refilling etc.

I had just installed two new black cartidges so I thought no harm could come
from resetting them, as a test sort of, well they were full anyway so it
couldn't do any harm, right. WRONG, the printer now although still
apparently functional and responding to print jobs ignores the ink
cartridges altogether.

The display in Status Monitor shows full levels on all cartidges but is
grayed out and the printer is no longer reducing the levels with print jobs.
The Information button is also grayed out and unresponsive. Clearly there is
now a danger that the printer will eventually suck air instead of ink. I
tested this by removing a cartridge and restarting Status Monitor, it still
showed full cartridges and displayed "Ready To Print".

I tried more new cartridges hoping it was only a problem with the cartridge
chips, no joy the problem remains. The printer is not communicating with the
cartridges anymore, it doesn't even appear to care whether or not they're
even installed.

Anyone any ideas maybe or even better solutions, thanks in advance if anyone
can help.

 

[Lukasz Spychalski]

I may have screwed my fairly new (very expensive) Epson Photo 950. I
was playing around with a utility program "SSC Epson Service Utility
Ver 2.91", (...)
The display in Status Monitor shows full levels on all cartidges but
is grayed out and the printer is no longer reducing the levels with
print jobs. The Information button is also grayed out and
unresponsive. Clearly there is now a danger that the printer will
eventually suck air instead of ink. I tested this by removing a
cartridge and restarting Status Monitor, it still showed full
cartridges and displayed "Ready To Print".

Not exactly. We can only tell, that status monitor is not working,
because something blocked the data stream carrying ink level
information from the printer to the host. We don't know if this
occured on the printer side or on the host side.

The grayed out buttons and status monitor are typical in cases, when
bidirectional data flow is damaged, but by now we can't tell if the
printer really stopped counting ink.

If the printer "ignores" carts, it would respond to print jobs even
with carts removed - grayed out monitor showing full carts tells
nothing.

I would suggest reinstalling the driver and sm. In some cases
"epusbun.exe" file can be helpful to properly remowe "epson usb
printer" from the system.

Please tell us, if this helps.

Best regards,
Lukasz Spychalski

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Maybe time to learn some Russian?

I'd try to contact the people who wrote SSC Epson Service Utility and
see if they have any solutions. It seems you have rewritten some of the
firmware in your printer.

Art