HP P1100 Photosmart disconnecting / uninstalling by itself

[robert.mcbride]

I have an HP P1100 connected to an HP a450n via a printer cable using
LPT1. I sucessfully used the HP printer on a 500 MHz P3 PC running
Windows XP for several years without a problem. I upgraded to the new
HP PC a couple of months ago and everything seemed fine, but now, all
of a sudden, I often get a pop-up dialog box stating the printer is
disconnected. The form gives me the option of trying to reconnect or
canceling. In both cased the printer driver is uninstalled. Then the
PC states that it's found 'new hardware' (my HP P1100 Photosmart
printer) and that it can't find the right drivers. So I have to
disconnect the printer and reinstall the HP software again. Then the
printer will work for a day or two until the drivers uninstall
themselves again.

My wife recently installed MSN V6.2 and I recently installed MathCAD
V12.
I run Norton antivirus daily and often run Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D and
they run clean.

Why does my print driver uninstall itself?

~Bob M.

 

[Cari \(MS-MVP\)]

Possibly a bad cable or bad (failing) LPT port.

 

[Bob]

I don't think it's the cable. I switched to USB and it does the same
thing. I think it's the printer. At least with USB I can disconnect
the printer, and then when I plug it back in the computer recognizes
it, and I can print.

Aside: I was thinking it was the BIOS setting of the parallel port
(bi-direct, EPP or ECP) but it was set to ECP which I think is correct.

So I downloaded the latest HP software and it installs fine. And I can
print a couple of documents okay, but then it disconnects. It might
disconnect right after printing.... I'll experiment.

Thanks
Bob M.