Damn printer keeps shutting off PC when it is time to print

[Archman]

Hello,

I thought that I fixed this issue a while ago, but it suddenly came back for no reason

I had this old HP Pavilion 4535 mini tower laying around, and decided to upgrade it a little bit and give it to my brother's son as a gift, his first computer to learn to do things on and play on (he was only 6).

I put in a Powerleap Adapter so I could upgrade the Celeron 400MHz to a Celeron 950MHz, an ATI Radeon 32MB PCI video card, WindowsXP was purchased for the system, and the memory was maxed out at 256MB.

My brother bought a Lexmark all in one unit (Scanner, Printer, Copier) printer for it, and he kept having this issue. Whenever he tried to print a document, the system would totally just shut off in one second, almost as though the power were cut. The power button has to be pushed, and the system starts up again Talk about a pain in the rear! It would scan documents without any issues, or copy without any problems what so ever.

Now I thought of a few things that could be the problem, and got some info from the forums here. I thought bad memory modules, but ruled that out with a good stick (yes it was tested), and purchased a new PSU that is 350 Watts, replacing the tiny 90 Watt PSU it originally had. He has tried all the drivers from Lexmark as well.

Nothing seemed to fix it.

The other day I was over at his place, and I kept trying to figure out what was wrong... well I unplugged the usb cable from one usb port, and plugged it into the other usb port... BINGO!

Suddenly it could print without any issues, and I tested it it several times. I shut down the PC and rebooted to see if it would still work *fingers were crossed* and it worked.

Now, a couple of days later, the Printer is doing the same damn thing. When anything is printed, BOOM the PC Screen goes black, and the system just turns right off

Any ideas as to what made it work suddenly, and why it stopped?

 

[phisrow]

I don't know why it would have stopped working again, offhand; but my guess would be that the printer is somehow defective in how it interacts with the +5 line on the USB port. It presumably loads that rail in a manner that either your motherboard or your PSU finds upsetting. If you have the cable to spare, and are feeling a touch tweaky, you could try prepairing a USB cable with the +5 and power(not data) ground cut. This might actually solve the problem, or at least isolate it to something else. You might also try a USB expansion board and see if that works any better(assuming you've been using motherboard ports up until now).
Weird sort of problem, though.

 

[Archman]

phisrow

I actually ran across a similar problem with a friend's computer as well. Her computer is an older Compaq tower with a PIII Slot 1 cpu.

Her computer originally came from her penthouse apartment in Hawaii, which was always open to the air (salt water). The back of the case where the fan exhausts are are coroded, as well as the usb ports. She was having issues with the printer not printing period.

Windows saw the printer, and said it was working fine, but nothing would print at all when it was time to print, everything just remained in the queue, sometimes 70+ items were in there, but nothing would print.

I tried the front usb ports as well... nothing. One day I just switched the usb cable into the other usb port, and presto it worked. Then a couple of days later, it would not work anymore.

I went out and purchased a USB 2.0 PCI card to add USB 2.0 to her system, and to figure out if it was the usb ports on the original computer.

BINGO! Everything worked fine and dandy Now again, about a week later I get a call from her telling me that it is not working again...

this is a very weird problem... this is similar... but not as bad as my brother's issue with the printer just shutting down the PC in an instant.

I am going to try using his printer on my laptop, to see if there are any issues with that... if nothing happens, I will be totally stumped

I mean I recently had to install a brand new HD as his died, and I did a fresh install of Win XP, with everything updated regarding service packs, and security, and what not without any problems. The printer was installed without any problems as well.

so I am stumped... and frustrated beyond belief.

oh well, maybe it'll come to me or someone here in a dream? who knows, stranger things have happened

 

[Abhi]

Does this printer have a parallel port by any chance?

 

[Archman]

For my brother's problem, no this is a Lexmark X1100/X1150 series printer with just a USB cable.

For my friends computer, it is a lexmark z33/32 series printer, and again there is no parallel port.

 

[tshock22]

Originally posted by: phisrow
I don't know why it would have stopped working again, offhand; but my guess would be that the printer is somehow defective in how it interacts with the +5 line on the USB port. It presumably loads that rail in a manner that either your motherboard or your PSU finds upsetting. If you have the cable to spare, and are feeling a touch tweaky, you could try prepairing a USB cable with the +5 and power(not data) ground cut. This might actually solve the problem, or at least isolate it to something else. You might also try a USB expansion board and see if that works any better(assuming you've been using motherboard ports up until now).
Weird sort of problem, though.

^^^^^^^^ I second this. I would also be very careful hooking this printer up to any machines--- if it is a power issue, there could be additional damage to other system components.

Also, when the printer stops working on any usb ports, have you verified those ports are still fully functional via 2.0 devices? The printer and/or any electrical issues could be damaging those ports.

 

[Archman]

Now there are two problems mentioned here:


Problem 1
Brothers PC shuts off when the printer tries to print (see the very first post I made at the top)

Problem 2
A friend's Printer will not print any document, even after installing a USB 2.0 card




Now what should I do with my brothers printer? Do I dare test it on another system?



Could there be some kind of an issues for problem 2 with the OS??? Should I try a reinstall of the OS?

 

[ThePiston]

sounds like a hardware/driver compatibility issue. I had the same problem with a USB wireless adapter. I would plug it in and if the drivers weren't installed, the thing would do nothing (obviously) but when I installed the drivers and rebooted, the thing would restart my computer every time. It was like magic, if I plugged the thing in, *poof* restart. It was a better rebooter than anything else. I checked for a new driver and I saw on some websites that this adapter was having problems with SP2. I put it in my laptop with SP2 and it worked fine. It was just a hardware problem with my desktop. I'd get newest drivers from website or get a new printer.