Vista won't boot with printer turned off

[Guest]

I have an Epson Stylus CX4800 all-in-one printer with built-in card reader.

If my printer is turned off, Vista will not cold-boot (restores from
hibernate with no trouble, though). As well, some applications or installers
won't function properly (ATI Catalyst installer hangs while searching for
hardware, but continues the moment the printer's turned on, and Acronis
TrueImage hangs while checking the drives, but continues when I turn the
printer on) unless I turn the printer on.

Has anyone got any clue what could be causing this? I'm running the Vista
drivers for it, and the machine works perfectly, but unless I leave it on
24/7 my computer has trouble. This makes me nervous, too, as if the printer
breaks it could leave the printer unbootable, not to mention I can't upgrade
the printer if I want to.

Help!

 

[Captain Roberts]

I have an Epson Stylus CX4800 all-in-one printer with built-in card reader.

If my printer is turned off, Vista will not cold-boot (restores from
hibernate with no trouble, though). As well, some applications or
installers
won't function properly (ATI Catalyst installer hangs while searching for
hardware, but continues the moment the printer's turned on, and Acronis
TrueImage hangs while checking the drives, but continues when I turn the
printer on) unless I turn the printer on.

Has anyone got any clue what could be causing this? I'm running the Vista
drivers for it, and the machine works perfectly, but unless I leave it on
24/7 my computer has trouble. This makes me nervous, too, as if the
printer
breaks it could leave the printer unbootable, not to mention I can't
upgrade
the printer if I want to.

Help!

Have you tried disconnecting the printer from the computer when the computer
is off? Does it start up normally then? If so, then it is a driver issue
with the printer, and once it is physically disconnected, you should be able
to attach another printer. And as far as upgrading the drivers, that is
what I would seek to do first. ;0)


Captain Roberts

 

[Guest]

Have you tried disconnecting the printer from the computer when the computer
is off? Does it start up normally then? If so, then it is a driver issue
with the printer, and once it is physically disconnected, you should be able
to attach another printer. And as far as upgrading the drivers, that is
what I would seek to do first. ;0)


Captain Roberts

I have tried all of that. Essentially if the printer not fully communicating
with the computer, it does not boot, disconnected included.

And the drivers have been upgraded. I was referring to upgrading to a newer
printer when I mentioned upgrading it. The software is the latest
Vista-compatible build directly from Epson.

TurboFool

 

[Richard Urban]

Go to Start | Printers

High light your printer. Then delete the printer

Reboot your computer. The O/S should re-detect your printer. Allow the
system to use the default drivers supplied by Vista. If/when you find
totally compatible manufacturer drivers specifically for Vista - install
them. If they are not designated as being for Vista, do NOT install them.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

 

[Guest]

Go to Start | Printers

High light your printer. Then delete the printer

Reboot your computer. The O/S should re-detect your printer. Allow the
system to use the default drivers supplied by Vista. If/when you find
totally compatible manufacturer drivers specifically for Vista - install
them. If they are not designated as being for Vista, do NOT install them.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

If I simply delete the printer and restart the computer it will reinstall
the printer with the same drivers it was using. I would need to go to Server
Properties and delete the drivers, as well, to avoid that.

That said, MS doesn't provide any drivers for this model of printer, and I'm
already using the Vista drivers for the printer. Epson was one of Microsoft's
first printer manufacturers to get Vista certification.

TurboFool

 

[Richard Urban]

I would certainly suspect defective drivers. It wouldn't be the first time a
company has had to deal with that problem! <grin>

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

 

[Guest]

I would certainly suspect defective drivers. It wouldn't be the first time a
company has had to deal with that problem! <grin>

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

While faulty drivers certainly aren't anything unusual, I've not been able
to locate anybody else reporting this problem with any printer, Epson or
otherwise. That's why I'm not so sure it's the drivers.

When I first installed Vista I installed the XP drivers as the Vista
versions were not yet available, but upon their release I upgraded, which
made no difference in the issue.

Any other ideas? I need to find some way to resolve this to ensure a
reliable computer.

TurboFool

 

[Richard Urban]

If you physically installed the printer software I would uninstall all of
the software, including the drivers. I would then delete the printer from
the printer folder. Upon reboot you say that there are no Vista supplied
drivers. That was then. As of now, Vista may be able to pull compatible
drivers from the download site if you allow Vista to search on-line during
the driver install.

If they still aren't available I would then install the "latest"
manufacturer Vista certified drivers.

I am assuming that you are running 32 bit Vista. You didn't say, and it
matters a lot. There are damn few drivers for 64 bit Vista.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

 

[Guest]

If you physically installed the printer software I would uninstall all of
the software, including the drivers. I would then delete the printer from
the printer folder. Upon reboot you say that there are no Vista supplied
drivers. That was then. As of now, Vista may be able to pull compatible
drivers from the download site if you allow Vista to search on-line during
the driver install.

If they still aren't available I would then install the "latest"
manufacturer Vista certified drivers.

I am assuming that you are running 32 bit Vista. You didn't say, and it
matters a lot. There are damn few drivers for 64 bit Vista.

I am running 32-bit for compatibility reasons, although I may dual-boot to
64-bit after my next reformat to see how that works for me.

I'll have to try that whole process over again. I'm just nervous about
uninstalling the drivers, unplugging the printer, and ending up with an
unbootable computer for whatever reason. I guess I'll just have to image the
partition before I do it, though, just in case.

Thanks,

TurboFool

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, TurboFool.

You haven't yet told us the interface that printer uses: USB? SCSI?
Parallel? Or???

Your description sounds like some of the problems that I used to have when I
was booting from SCSI and had some SCSI peripherals If they weren't all
online at boot time, the SCSI BIOS got confused.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Live Mail beta in Vista Ultimate x64)

 

[Guest]

Hi, TurboFool.

You haven't yet told us the interface that printer uses: USB? SCSI?
Parallel? Or???

Your description sounds like some of the problems that I used to have when I
was booting from SCSI and had some SCSI peripherals If they weren't all
online at boot time, the SCSI BIOS got confused.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Live Mail beta in Vista Ultimate x64)

Like most modern home all-in-ones, this one is USB-only. An interesting
thought nonetheless, though. I wonder if my motherboard could have ANY
connection to this issue. I was delightfully-surprised to see that it
actually fully recognizes USB storage devices, as from the Windows
installation it was able to see not only all my SATA drives without needing a
textmode driver, but even my external USB backup drive. Still, my XP
partition has no trouble booting with the printer off, so even if it is the
motherboard or BIOS, it's a Vista issue.

TurboFool

 

[Michael Tissington]

You said your printer has an SD lot.
Have you set the SD slot to be used by Vista ?

 

[Guest]

You said your printer has an SD lot.
Have you set the SD slot to be used by Vista ?

Sorry, what do you mean by "used?" Vista recognizes it and it works, but I
haven't put an SD card in there and set it to be used for ReadyBoost or
anything like that if that's what you mean.

TurboFool

 

[Guest]

- the catalyst is known that is not fully compatible with windows
vista.

Are you referring to ATi's Catalyst drivers? They seem to work just fine,
it's merely that they, along with other installers, hang during installation
unless my printer's on. They were installed before my printer and my computer
booted fine. It's only after the printer was installed that I started having
trouble.

- try a clean boot (to disable all programs running on the background)
'How to perform a clean boot procedure to prevent background programs
from interfering with a game or a program that you currently use'
(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/331796/en-us)

I haven't tried this yet. I guess it can't hurt.

- try installing the lastest chipset drivers for your motherboard.
when you switch from windows xp to windows vista, some motherboards
need a BIOS update to perform well. try that.

Chipset drivers and BIOS are 100% current.

TurboFool