Lost ability to print to LPT1

[ameyer2]

I have an old printer attached to a parallel port as LPT1:
on my Windows XP SP2 system. It worked fine for years but
suddenly I can't print to it.

The last change I recall making to my system before the
failure was installation of Cisco based VPN software. I thought
maybe that caused the problem but uninstalling the VPN did
not help.

The printer and cable are okay because they still work when
I connect the printer to my laptop.

Windows tells me the printer is installed fine on LPT1: as the
default printer. I think the parallel port is working because when
I reboot the computer I see and hear the printer initialize. But
I can't print to it from any application, either Windows or DOS,
and no test page appears when Windows tells me it sent one to
the printer.

Can anyone suggest anything I can try?

Thank you very much.

Alan Meyer

 

[ameyer2]

I have an old printer attached to a parallel port as LPT1:
on my Windows XP SP2 system. It worked fine for years but
suddenly I can't print to it.

The last change I recall making to my system before the
failure was installation of Cisco based VPN software. I thought
maybe that caused the problem but uninstalling the VPN did
not help.

The printer and cable are okay because they still work when
I connect the printer to my laptop.

Windows tells me the printer is installed fine on LPT1: as the
default printer. I think the parallel port is working because when
I reboot the computer I see and hear the printer initialize. But
I can't print to it from any application, either Windows or DOS,
and no test page appears when Windows tells me it sent one to
the printer.

Can anyone suggest anything I can try?

Thank you very much.

Alan Meyer

I should have added that I tried the usual things such as rebooting,
uninstalling and re-installing the printer, printing from many
different applications, and copying from a command prompt to LPT1:
and PRN:.

None of that helped.

Alan

 

[Duke Williams]

Hi,

Did you check "Device manager" in Control Panel-System ?

PORT(COM & LPT)-ECP Printer Port(LPT1).

If no such item or ! mark on it, you may have hardware problem on LPT1.
Better to repair the LPT1 port on mother board.

Hope this helps.

Duke

 

[Alan Meyer]

Hi,

Did you check "Device manager" in Control Panel-System ?

PORT(COM & LPT)-ECP Printer Port(LPT1).

If no such item or ! mark on it, you may have hardware problem on LPT1.
Better to repair the LPT1 port on mother board.

Hope this helps.

YES INDEED DUKE!!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Device manager showed everything working properly,
but it offered me an option under port settings
that I hadn't been aware of before. The options
were

Try not to use an interrupt.

Never use an interrupt.

Use any interrupt assigned to the port.

I changed the setting from never to use any and
everything worked! I have no idea how this setting
might have changed since I'm positive I didn't
change it, or whether it used to work with no
interrupt and now requires it. I'm certain I made
no changes to the BIOS settings on the motherboard
but, who knows, something may have changed them.

In any case, the problem is fixed and your help
was instrumental.

Thanks again.

Alan

 

[Guest]

Alan,

I just upgraded from ME to XP and have exactly the same problem. It is as if
I wrote yours. I have a HP560C which works perfect with my Laptop (also XP)
but refuses to work with PC??

Did you ever figure this out??
Al Hamm
(e-mail address removed)