Printing Problems

[Amateur Linguist]

I have an Apollo P-2250 inkjet printer (an HP compatible model) attached to my PC running Windows XP. Every once in a while (usually when I'm printing a lot from the web) the printer will decide to print pages of gibberish bearing only a slight resemblance to what it's supposed to be printing. Once that happens, it then prints gibberish from all applications and I can't print anything right. Once I was able to make the problem go away by turning off print spooling (as the Windows XP help feature suggested), but that hasn't helped lately. The tech support people I called at Apollo (after offering suggestions that hadn't worked in the past) recommended unplugging the printer for a day or so & hoping the problem disappears. That hasn't worked.

You're a bunch of smart, tech-savvy actuaries. What do you suggest I try?

[Mopus]

Another printer.

(sorry, someone had to say it :P )

More details please. USB or LPT port? Does the problem appear under different OSes? Does it happen after using a specific app, or will any app cause the problem?

What model is it? Have Googled yourself blind to see if others are experiencing your problem?

[Amateur Linguist]

More details please. USB or LPT port?
LPT.

Does the problem appear under different OSes?
I never run any OS but Windows XP, so I don't know.

Does it happen after using a specific app, or will any app cause the problem?
So far as I can recall, on each occasion the problem sutfaced when I was printing from AoL's web browser. However, once that kicks off the problem, no other application will print either, until the machine eventually recovers after being left unplugged for days. (I can't even print a test page from the print folder on the PC, though I can print one directly by pushing the buttons on the printer.)

What model is it?
Didn't I say it's an Apollo P-2250?

Have Googled yourself blind to see if others are experiencing your problem?

I looked to no avail when the problem first surfaced, but you're right, I should try again.

Another printer

Would you care to recommend one?

[Mopus]

If you can isolate the problem to AOL, well, you're done. One of 2 things I see happening here. Either AOL is sending garbage instructions to the print driver, which in turn corrupts the printer, or the driver itself is responsible for not handling valid commands. Either way, your printer is being corrupted by bad instructions causing it to misbehave. You can try to play with various printer settings in XP but I doubt this will help.

The simple solution would be to not print from AOL until the problem is resolved by AOL or Apollo.

As to recommendatiions for other printers, it depends on what you want print. If you do color images, I can't help. I have never owned an inkjet.
The last printer I bought was a Lexmark Optra E312. It's cheap for a PS printer, will take upto 64 Mb of memory and is plenty fast and quiet compared to my old HP 4ML. (the 4ML cost over a grand Cdn in its day, the 312 is under 500 Cdn).

[glenn]

I concur with the Penguin. One further note though, I was having similiar problems a few months ago. A simple reinstall of Windows fixed it for me, but I'm using 98 not XP so I reinstall regularly anyway.

As for cheap lasers, I'm finding the samsung laser's to be nice. About $300 CDN, you can get them at Costco and Sam's Club sometimes. And they come with linux drivers. Nobody's going to use this, but it's good to support this type of stuff :-).

[Amateur Linguist]

The simple solution would be to not print from AOL until the problem is resolved by AOL or Apollo.

Except that I'm now in the phase when, thanks to the last occurrence of the problem, I can't print anything from anywhere. It's been a week and the thing hasn't recovered yet. If it ever starts working again, I'll swear off printing from AoL & see if that prevents further recurrence of the problem, but I'm now effectively printer-less for no-one-knows-how-long.

[Mopus]

If after a week the problem hasn't resolved itself I'd do like Glenn says - Reinstall the OS and see what happens.

[Fuzzy]

If it doesn't help to simply turn the printer off and restart it, or to "reset" the printer, how about downloading a new copy of, and reinstalling, your printer driver?