2000 printing problem: prints one line of garbage

CrimsonKing

Senior member
Apr 3, 2000
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I have come accross this issue at work twice in the last week. We have recently rolled out Windows 2000 to a lot of users, both as upgrades and replacement PCs. In some instances, when printing to a local printer or to a network printer via LPT capture/mapping, the printer spits out a page with a single line of random characters, few of which are part of the Roman alphabet. Looks like a cross between wingdings and symbols, with a couple normal letters thrown in. I get just one line of this, at the top, and sometimes not even a full line. If I get multiple pages, it's sometimes just one or two characters in the corner.

I have had this issue with an LJ5 hooked up locally and an LJ8150 on the network. But it's only when using a program that prints to LPT1, so it seems to be related to local printing so far.

Unfortunately, I don't have much expertise in 2000 workstations, so if anyone has seen this, please let me know. Thanks!
 

oniq

Banned
Feb 17, 2002
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What kind of printer is it? At work they had the same problem as you describe on their laser printer. The fix for this was to restore factory defaults (in the menu options on the printer, I believe).
 

CrimsonKing

Senior member
Apr 3, 2000
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One was a LaserJet 5 and the other was a LaserJet 8150 (multiple users to this one). I don't think any changes have been made, since these are brand new installs, but I'll ty your fix. Thanks!

I should also note that when printing to the 8150 through a standard network port (they're all shared from centralized print servers), it prints fine. It's only when we map LPT1 to the network port and send out jobs that way (as required by the application) that we see the problem.

 

Sketcher

Platinum Member
Aug 15, 2001
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You say that printing is fine when performed through the print servers... What OS or Firmware is your network print server? Both 2000 Server and Netware 5x allow you to store drivers on the print server/qeue so that the local workstations aren't required to have updated printer drivers (also only requires one place do keep current drivers).

Could be one reason why you can print through the network but not LPT1. Then, there's the driver issues - and whether or not the program you're printing from requires a DOS capture for the printer port. Assumption is made that you're using current drivers.

-Sketcher