USB device refresh question

[BoberFett]

I built a PC and my customer wanted to hook 2 printers up. Rather than going with an add-in parallel board or a parallel switch box, I thought I'd be high-tech and go with a USB printer cable. I sold them a DLink DSB-P36 which has the USB on one end and a Centronics on the other.

Anyway, back to the question at hand. If the printer is turned off and back on while the computer is running, it won't subsequently recognize the printer. Any print jobs sent to that printer return an error. The only fix so far is to reboot the computer or reach behind the computer and unplug and replug the USB/printer cable.

Has anyone run into a similar problem?

And does anyone know if there's some kind of utility that forces Windows to rescan the USB bus? I've searched around and haven't been able to find anything of the sort, but it seems as though that might be a handy utility to have.

TIA
Chris

 

[obenton]

You could try going into device manager and clicking "refresh" or, in w2k, clicking "scan for hardware changes". Or, you could put in a USB extension cable, running it around to the front of the computer, making for a simpler connect/disconnect.

 

[GL]

Which version of Windows is the customer running? Win2K seems to handle these parallel - USB adapters really well. I'm personally using Belkin's cable and it hasn't given me any trouble whatsoever. On the other hand, I never used it under Win98. I know on Belkin's site, they talk about a bug in Windows 98 in which Windows would stop recognizing a USB device if there was an electrostatic discharge on the USB port. Turning the printer off and on might cause this. I believe there was a patch for this, or that it was fixed in subsequent Windows releases.

-GL

 

[BoberFett]

obenton

I'll try the Device Manager refresh thing. I kind of wanted to avoid throwing another cable or USB hub into the mix, but I guess if that's what it takes.

GL

This machine is running Win 98 SE. I'll check out Belkin's site. Thanks for the lead.