Bizarre problem: Booting up with printer on

[Dankk]

Preliminary info: It's an HP Officejet Pro L7780 All-in-One, it connects via USB, and it's my neighbors. He runs Windows XP on a Dell that is five years old or so.

The problem: When the printer is turned on and plugged in, the computer takes approximately 15-20 minutes to boot up. No lies. And by "boot up", I mean you see an empty black computer screen for 20 minutes before the Windows XP loading screen even appears.

When I power on the PC without the USB cable plugged in, it boots up without a hitch. Perfect, no problems. Same goes for when it is plugged it, but not turned on.

One of my first ideas was to go into the bios and ensure that it is booting directly to the hard disk, and nothing else. It didn't take long to see that it made no difference. Regardless of how I set the boot sequence, if the printer is plugged in and powered on, Windows doesn't begin loading for 20 minutes or so. Simple as that.

What's interesting is that the long wait occurs before I can even get into the bios setup. When I press DEL or whatever after I press the power button, I still have to wait the 20 minutes and THEN I can get into the setup. This makes me wonder if it's some sort of really weird hardware problem, and it has nothing to do with Windows.

I tried installing updated drivers for the printer anyway, but it did nothing. (Like I said: Hardware problem?) Then I hoped that updating the printers firmware would magically solve everything, but nope.

I've spent a long time racking my brain on how to be able to fix this, but I've gotten to the point of almost literally pulling my hair out. I know that he could just keep the printer off and then turn it on only when the computer is on and when he needs it, but that really shouldn't be necessary, should it?

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

 

[csc]

Not a driver issue, problem is before the drivers are loaded. I would imagine that the motherboard is getting flakey, probably due to its age. This could also be a psu issue, see if it is dusty and blow it out.

 

[oynaz]

Sounds like a defective USB port. Definitely not a driver issue!

 

[RebateMonger]

If you have a PS2 keyboard and PS2 ports on your motherboard, try using the PS2 keyboard and disabling the Legacy USB support in the BIOS.

Otherwise, you could try clearing the CMOS and you could try re-flashing the BIOS with the latest version. Maybe try plugging the printer into a PCI USB add-in card.

 

[Dankk]

Sounds like a defective USB port. Definitely not a driver issue!

I tried using different USB ports, including ones on the front of the case. It made no difference.

If you have a PS2 keyboard and PS2 ports on your motherboard, try using the PS2 keyboard and disabling the Legacy USB support in the BIOS.

After looking at the BIOS multiple times, I do not remember the ability to change this type of setting. It was a pretty simple menu and there wasn't much I could alter. I suppose there could be something I totally overlooked, but as I said, I think I looked at the BIOS enough to see that it was only a small list of settings and everything was pretty much crammed onto one screen. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that it's a relatively old machine.

Otherwise, you could try clearing the CMOS and you could try re-flashing the BIOS with the latest version. Maybe try plugging the printer into a PCI USB add-in card.

This is the best suggestion so far. I don't have any of those cards, but I suppose I can try to flash the bios with a newer version if available.

 

[Meghan54]

I'd bet the hangup is the BIOS trying to access the printer's onboard memory card slots during boot. Seen this happen before.

Sometimes BIOS updates solves it, sometimes it doesn't and in that case, the easiest solution is just shutting off the printer when you shut down the computer and turn on the printer after the computer boots.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I used to have occasional boot problems with my 6150-based NV chipset S939 micro-atx board, when I had my Brother MFC-420CN plugged into it with USB. Sometimes it would just hang and not boot. I didn't bother to wait 20 minutes.

Unplug the printer, or just turn it off for a while, and then it would boot. Sometimes, though, it would boot just fine with it connected. I have no idea what the root cause was.

However, if it got past the BIOS boot screens, then the Windows XP boot screens proceeded without issue.

 

[heymrdj]

We've seen this alot at work before, especially on older motherboards. First of all check your BIOS's boot order, making sure it's not set to boot from USB. Second is to disable legacy USB support, though this can make USB keyboards not function in the BIOS so that you have to use a PS/2 keyboard to change the BIOS. The computer is trying to access the printers memory card slots to try to boot them and this is a very very slow setup to go through (ie the 20 minute wait).

The easiest thing to do is to remember to turn off the printer and not turn it on until the computer is fully booted, or at least on the windows loading screen. Sometimes a BIOS flash can fix the issue, but I've rarely seen a company care.

 

[Dankk]

I went into the BIOS, found a menu option called 'legacy USB emulation' (or something like that" and toggled it to 'NO-boot'. Worked like a charm.

Thanks, guys.