Epson Stylus Color 640 on WinXP

[Tom]

Howdy,

I had a Epson Stylus Color 640 connected to a Win98 machine and the
printer accessible from a WinXP machine via LAN. This worked great as
both Win98 and WinXP had access to the printer. Recently the Win98
machine had a hard drive fail. So I decided not to repair it and just
move the printer to the WinXP machine.

First I tried the Epson Win2000 driver at Epson (there is no XP driver),
installing the drivers first before connecting the printer. No dice. I
uninstalled the Epson driver and tried the included WinXP 640 driver.
Again, no dice. Also tried printing from DOS, nope.

I loaded up a huge 17MB text file and attempted to print from Notepad to
allow me more time to see what was happening. While the text file was
printing, the print icon appeared in the systray. I could see from the
spool that the text file was there and the pages were just zipping by.
So, it looks like it is attempting to print, but that there is some sort
of broken link to the printer.

LPT1 is set to ECP in BIOS (although I tried Normal) and is shown in
device manager "This device is working properly". I've let it assign an
IRQ, and tried enabling Legacy PnP support, with no luck. I also did a
self-test from the printer itself and it printed fine. So I know the
printer works fine.

Please, anyone have any suggestions, I just don't know what else to try?

 

[Tony]

Howdy,

I had a Epson Stylus Color 640 connected to a Win98 machine and the
printer accessible from a WinXP machine via LAN. This worked great as
both Win98 and WinXP had access to the printer. Recently the Win98
machine had a hard drive fail. So I decided not to repair it and just
move the printer to the WinXP machine.

First I tried the Epson Win2000 driver at Epson (there is no XP driver),
installing the drivers first before connecting the printer. No dice. I
uninstalled the Epson driver and tried the included WinXP 640 driver.
Again, no dice. Also tried printing from DOS, nope.

I loaded up a huge 17MB text file and attempted to print from Notepad to
allow me more time to see what was happening. While the text file was
printing, the print icon appeared in the systray. I could see from the
spool that the text file was there and the pages were just zipping by.
So, it looks like it is attempting to print, but that there is some sort
of broken link to the printer.

LPT1 is set to ECP in BIOS (although I tried Normal) and is shown in
device manager "This device is working properly". I've let it assign an
IRQ, and tried enabling Legacy PnP support, with no luck. I also did a
self-test from the printer itself and it printed fine. So I know the
printer works fine.

Please, anyone have any suggestions, I just don't know what else to try?

Hi Tom
This printer is natively supported in WinXP, so if you "Add new printer" and
when asked, select Epson and your model it should install and work correctly.
There may be some differences between the native drivers and the 2000 driver.
Make sure you uninstall the 2000 driver first and reboot before installing the
native driver.
If that doesn't work you may have a hardware problem with the port but my
suspicion is the driver is not correct for WinXP.
Tony

 

[Tom]

This printer is natively supported in WinXP, so if you "Add new
printer" and when asked, select Epson and your model it should install
and work correctly. There may be some differences between the native
drivers and the 2000 driver. Make sure you uninstall the 2000 driver
first and reboot before installing the native driver. If that doesn't
work you may have a hardware problem with the port but my suspicion is
the driver is not correct for WinXP.

To be sure I followed your suggestions correctly, I wrote these notes:

1. Opened "Printers and Faxes" from Control panel
2. Selected printer, selected delete = leaving no printers attached
3. Rebooted and checked WinDOC and Registry Mechanic = no problems found
4. Opened "Printers and Faxes"
5. Selected "Add Printer"
6. Add Printer Wizard opened
6a. Selected "Local printer attached to this computer"
6b. Selected "Use the following port = "LPT1 (recommended printer port)"
6c. Selected "Epson" --> "Epson stylus color 640 esc/p 2"
6d. Selected "Replace existing driver"
6e. Used default "Printer name"
6f. Selected "Do not share this printer"
6g. Selected "No" when asked if I wanted to print a test page
6h. Clicked "Finished"
7. Dialog box appears showing files being copied
8. "Printer and Faxes" shows "Epson Stylus COLOR 640 ESC/P 2" as default
9. Rebooted computer
10. Opened Notepad -> Typed "Printer test" and selected "Print" from menu
11. Default "Epson Stylus COLOR 640 ESC/P 2" is already highlighted
12. clicked "Print"

Hopefully the above described what you suggest in your reply.

Unfortunately, it did not print. Everything seems to have gone through
the motion of being printed. The printer icon appeared in the Systray
and then disappeared, but the printer sat there dormant. No error of any
kind. It's as if there is some kind of disconnect between the LPT1 port
an printer spool.

 

[Tony]

To be sure I followed your suggestions correctly, I wrote these notes:

1. Opened "Printers and Faxes" from Control panel
2. Selected printer, selected delete = leaving no printers attached
3. Rebooted and checked WinDOC and Registry Mechanic = no problems found
4. Opened "Printers and Faxes"
5. Selected "Add Printer"
6. Add Printer Wizard opened
6a. Selected "Local printer attached to this computer"
6b. Selected "Use the following port = "LPT1 (recommended printer port)"
6c. Selected "Epson" --> "Epson stylus color 640 esc/p 2"
6d. Selected "Replace existing driver"
6e. Used default "Printer name"
6f. Selected "Do not share this printer"
6g. Selected "No" when asked if I wanted to print a test page
6h. Clicked "Finished"
7. Dialog box appears showing files being copied
8. "Printer and Faxes" shows "Epson Stylus COLOR 640 ESC/P 2" as default
9. Rebooted computer
10. Opened Notepad -> Typed "Printer test" and selected "Print" from menu
11. Default "Epson Stylus COLOR 640 ESC/P 2" is already highlighted
12. clicked "Print"

Hopefully the above described what you suggest in your reply.

Unfortunately, it did not print. Everything seems to have gone through
the motion of being printed. The printer icon appeared in the Systray
and then disappeared, but the printer sat there dormant. No error of any
kind. It's as if there is some kind of disconnect between the LPT1 port
an printer spool.

Tom
All the above looks good except for the method of removing the old drivers, it
is generally not a good idea to "delete" a printer in the "Printers and Faxes"
tab in the control panel. This can result in some registry entries being left
in place. When you deleted the printer did you get a message something like
"There are some files no longer needed for this printer, do you wish to delete
these files?" If you did not get this message then there is a possibility that
there are remnants of the driver still on your PC. It is better to use the
manufacturers uninstall program, Epson provides this for just about all of
their printers as do most manufacturers. You may have to remove all references
to the printer and Epson (assuming you have no other Epson devices installed)
from the registry, to do this you should back up your registry first (See the
Microsoft website for how to do this correctly) and then do a search for all
Epson entries in the registry and delete them, if that causes a problem you can
use the registry backup to to recover your system (again, see the instructions
from Microsoft).
Having said all that, you may have a LPT port problem or some other hardware
issue but the symptoms do not indicate that to me.
There is also a possibility that the spooler has become corrupted, there may be
a simple way to restore that but the only way I know that woks well is to do a
repair install of WinXP, it should not cause you to lose any data.
One last thought, have you tried using the driver settings and printing direct
to the printer? This bypasses the spooler I believe.
Tony

 

[Tom]

All the above looks good except for the method of removing the old
drivers, it is generally not a good idea to "delete" a printer in the
"Printers and Faxes" tab in the control panel. This can result in some
registry entries being left in place. When you deleted the printer did
you get a message something like "There are some files no longer
needed for this printer, do you wish to delete these files?" If you
did not get this message then there is a possibility that there are
remnants of the driver still on your PC. It is better to use the
manufacturers uninstall program, Epson provides this for just about
all of their printers as do most manufacturers. You may have to remove
all references to the printer and Epson (assuming you have no other
Epson devices installed) from the registry, to do this you should back
up your registry first (See the Microsoft website for how to do this
correctly) and then do a search for all Epson entries in the registry
and delete them, if that causes a problem you can use the registry
backup to to recover your system (again, see the instructions from
Microsoft).

The driver previously installed was the WinXP Epson 640 generic driver.
I don't think there is any other way to remove the generic driver other
than to delete it in "Printers and Faxes" from Control panel.

Another attempt at solving this issue was to deleted/uninstall LPT1 from
device manager, have WinXP rediscover and reinstall the device drivers
on the next reboot. After rebooting the "ECP Printer Port (LPT1)" was
rediscovered and the drivers reinstalled, but had no effect on the
printing issue.

I remember that Win98se refers to the "ECP Printer Port (LPT1)" as
"Epson Printer Port (LPT1)". I don't know if that's because the Win98se
machine had the actual Epson driver installed or it's because the OS was
Win98se. Either way is very likely to be the reason.

Also, I tried setting the LPT1 Port Setting back to "Never use an
Interrupt", but leave Legacy PnP support checked. That too had no effect
on the printing issue. I have now set the Port Settings back to "Never
use an Interrupt" and uncheck Legacy PnP support (the default).

Having said all that, you may have a LPT port problem or some other
hardware issue but the symptoms do not indicate that to me.

I wish I had some other parallel device that I could attach and find out
if that made any difference. I looked all over the BIOS for port
settings, these are all I could find (they are grouped together in
Onboard Devices Configuration):

Parallel Port Address = 378
Parallel Port Mode = ECP
EPC Mode DMA Channel = DMA3
Parallel Port IRQ = 7

The IRQ7 is confirmed when I switch Port Settings for LPT1 to "Use any
interrupt assigned to port" and the "Resources" tab shows IRQ7 now being
used. For what it's worth, IRQ7 doesn't have anything else assigned to
it.

There is also a possibility that the spooler has become corrupted,
there may be a simple way to restore that but the only way I know that
woks well is to do a repair install of WinXP, it should not cause you
to lose any data.

Since I previously used the printer without issue when it was attached
to the Win98se box via the LAN, the WinXP spooler should be working
fine.

One last thought, have you tried using the driver settings and
printing direct to the printer? This bypasses the spooler I believe.
Tony

I hadn't before, I have now.

Going into the "Epson Stylus COLOR 640 ESC/P 2" properties, I went to
the "Advance" tab and toggled it so "Print directly to printer" was
selected, then applied and okayed it.

Went back into Notepad, scribbled some 10 characters of text and sent it
to the printer. The Epson print job window appeared showing the status
as "Printing". It has remained that way for longer then it has taken me
to type this paragraph. I eventually just canceled the print job as it
was going nowhere.

One last thing. I sent an e-mail to Epson about this issue. I was very
detailed about all the things I have tried which failed (including
printing from WinXP) and which things that worked fine (including
printing from Win98se and the self-test).

I received a form letter telling me, "To ensure good results on your
printouts, please use Genuine Epson Ink cartridges. Epson does not
recommend the use of refilled inks or 3rd party ink cartridges. To help
preserve the life of the ink cartridges we suggest that you turn the
printer off when it is not in use". Then goes on to tell me in
considerable amount of detail how to perform a nozzle cleaning.

If someone at Epson had actually taken a moment to read what I had
written they would have known that nozzle cleaning was far, very far
away from the problem. That is very bad customer, and future customer,
relations. I'm not making an excuse for Epson, that's how it is with
most companies these days.

 

[Tony]

The driver previously installed was the WinXP Epson 640 generic driver.
I don't think there is any other way to remove the generic driver other
than to delete it in "Printers and Faxes" from Control panel.

Another attempt at solving this issue was to deleted/uninstall LPT1 from
device manager, have WinXP rediscover and reinstall the device drivers
on the next reboot. After rebooting the "ECP Printer Port (LPT1)" was
rediscovered and the drivers reinstalled, but had no effect on the
printing issue.

I remember that Win98se refers to the "ECP Printer Port (LPT1)" as
"Epson Printer Port (LPT1)". I don't know if that's because the Win98se
machine had the actual Epson driver installed or it's because the OS was
Win98se. Either way is very likely to be the reason.

Also, I tried setting the LPT1 Port Setting back to "Never use an
Interrupt", but leave Legacy PnP support checked. That too had no effect
on the printing issue. I have now set the Port Settings back to "Never
use an Interrupt" and uncheck Legacy PnP support (the default).


I wish I had some other parallel device that I could attach and find out
if that made any difference. I looked all over the BIOS for port
settings, these are all I could find (they are grouped together in
Onboard Devices Configuration):

Parallel Port Address = 378
Parallel Port Mode = ECP
EPC Mode DMA Channel = DMA3
Parallel Port IRQ = 7

The IRQ7 is confirmed when I switch Port Settings for LPT1 to "Use any
interrupt assigned to port" and the "Resources" tab shows IRQ7 now being
used. For what it's worth, IRQ7 doesn't have anything else assigned to
it.


Since I previously used the printer without issue when it was attached
to the Win98se box via the LAN, the WinXP spooler should be working
fine.


I hadn't before, I have now.

Going into the "Epson Stylus COLOR 640 ESC/P 2" properties, I went to
the "Advance" tab and toggled it so "Print directly to printer" was
selected, then applied and okayed it.

Went back into Notepad, scribbled some 10 characters of text and sent it
to the printer. The Epson print job window appeared showing the status
as "Printing". It has remained that way for longer then it has taken me
to type this paragraph. I eventually just canceled the print job as it
was going nowhere.

One last thing. I sent an e-mail to Epson about this issue. I was very
detailed about all the things I have tried which failed (including
printing from WinXP) and which things that worked fine (including
printing from Win98se and the self-test).

I received a form letter telling me, "To ensure good results on your
printouts, please use Genuine Epson Ink cartridges. Epson does not
recommend the use of refilled inks or 3rd party ink cartridges. To help
preserve the life of the ink cartridges we suggest that you turn the
printer off when it is not in use". Then goes on to tell me in
considerable amount of detail how to perform a nozzle cleaning.

If someone at Epson had actually taken a moment to read what I had
written they would have known that nozzle cleaning was far, very far
away from the problem. That is very bad customer, and future customer,
relations. I'm not making an excuse for Epson, that's how it is with
most companies these days.

Tom
I have run out of ideas with this.
The only thing left that you have not tried is a replacement printer cable. Yes
I know it worked on the other PC but it may be monodirectional and maybe the
WinXP PC is operating bidirectionally and needs a bidirectional cable, bit of a
long shot. Failing that it looks like a problem with the printer port.
Tony

 

[Tom]

I have run out of ideas with this.

Me too.

The only thing left that you have not tried is a replacement printer
cable. Yes I know it worked on the other PC but it may be
monodirectional and maybe the WinXP PC is operating bidirectionally
and needs a bidirectional cable, bit of a long shot.

There is an option in the printer Port settings to enable bidirectional
support. It's not checked and it's ghosted out with the WinXP generic
driver installed. So it appears to be working monodirectionally. It
could be that the Stylus Color 640 printer and/or the driver is so old
that it doesn't support bidirectional communications. Because of this,
and I could be wrong, but I don't think replacing the cable would help.

Failing that it looks like a problem with the printer port.

If it is a parallel port problem, I haven't the slightest idea how to
test for that - outside of buying a PCI parallel port card or buying
some kind of parallel port device.

BTW, I receive another reply from Epson. This time the helpful Epson
Support folks suggested the following:

1. Check that the cable is correctly connected
2. Check that the cable is connected directly to the computer
3. Check if Spool Manager is holding the print jobs [*]
4. Perhaps remove all drivers and install the resident Win2000 driver [*]

[*] = Included complete instructions

All four of these suggestions were covered in the first e-mail as things
I had tried or observed. And, I have no idea were they came up with the
idea that I was using Win2000. I mention I'm using WinXP in several
places, including in their own OS selection box which appears in all
correspondence. I wish I could get a job at Epson, it sounds easy.

I decided to replace the Stylus Color 640 printer. Come Monday morning
I'm going to order a Epson R340 and a new USB 2 cable. I like Epson
printers, it's Epson support department that, well, appears rather
useless.

I'm going to keep the Stylus Color 640 as it might come in handy one
day. Of course, I said the same thing about my Star NX-1000c printer
sitting in the closet. One day serial will make its return, and I'll be
ready!

Tony, I would like to thank you for sticking it out as long as you
could. I really appreciate it. Thanks!

 

[Tony]

Me too.


There is an option in the printer Port settings to enable bidirectional
support. It's not checked and it's ghosted out with the WinXP generic
driver installed. So it appears to be working monodirectionally. It
could be that the Stylus Color 640 printer and/or the driver is so old
that it doesn't support bidirectional communications. Because of this,
and I could be wrong, but I don't think replacing the cable would help.


If it is a parallel port problem, I haven't the slightest idea how to
test for that - outside of buying a PCI parallel port card or buying
some kind of parallel port device.

Tom
Good luck with the new printer, maybe you know someone with a parallel port
printer that you could try on your PC??
Tony

 

[Tom]

Good luck with the new printer,

Thanks. The new printer is arriving tomorrow.

By purchasing a new printer, I'm hopeful that the new printer in the
best HQ print mode will not print those thin fuzzy color horizontal
lines. Let me think, what's the best way to describe it. Not thin white
horizontal lines, but slight deviation in color about an eighth inch
apart or so. It's only noticeable when you get really close to the
printout. That's really my only complaint about the Stylus Color 640
after all these years.

maybe you know someone with a parallel port printer that you could try
on your PC??

Everyone that I have asked says that their printer connects via a USB
port. One person is looking to see if they can find their old Canon
bubble jet, but he hasn't gotten back to me yet. I don't know the model,
maybe WinXP has a driver, maybe not, but it sure looks like parallel
printers have gone the way of the mammoth. Maybe down the road I'll get
a parallel to USB adaptor and see what happens.

Shame more people didn't jump into the conversation. Maybe this needed
to be about ink.

Thanks again.

 

[Tony]

Thanks. The new printer is arriving tomorrow.

By purchasing a new printer, I'm hopeful that the new printer in the
best HQ print mode will not print those thin fuzzy color horizontal
lines. Let me think, what's the best way to describe it. Not thin white
horizontal lines, but slight deviation in color about an eighth inch
apart or so. It's only noticeable when you get really close to the
printout. That's really my only complaint about the Stylus Color 640
after all these years.


Everyone that I have asked says that their printer connects via a USB
port. One person is looking to see if they can find their old Canon
bubble jet, but he hasn't gotten back to me yet. I don't know the model,
maybe WinXP has a driver, maybe not, but it sure looks like parallel
printers have gone the way of the mammoth. Maybe down the road I'll get
a parallel to USB adaptor and see what happens.

Shame more people didn't jump into the conversation. Maybe this needed
to be about ink.

Thanks again.

To be fair Tom, the subject of ink is important to many people here but it is
not one that I get involved with very often.
The problem is that printers are quite specialised, many good IT or computer
people have limited knowledge of these demanding and often complex creatures.
Some of us specialise in these increasingly important machines but don't have
all the answers, I wish I did!
Enjoy your new printer.
Tony