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#1
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PC freezes when I plug printer cable in
Hi,
I hope someone may be able to help. If you think this would be better posted to a different group, please let me know, as I am new to this particular corner of usenet! I have a Pentium II running Win98. I use a Canon Bubblejet printer with it and all has been fine for several years. Last weekend, I borrowed a laptop running Windows XP and plugged my printer into that machine to do some printing. Again, all worked fine. In the course of printing, I changed one or two "properties" settings in the print dialogue box. Now that I am back on my own desktop, I find that every time the printer gets anywhere near the PC, the PC freezes completely. And by "anywhere near", I mean plugging in a printer cable, with components on or off. Absolutely no action at all - Ctrl Alt Del does nothing, the cursor vanishes and only by removing the power completely can I make any progress. Then when I try to restart the PC, the fan comes on and there's a click or two as if the disk drive is about to launch into action, but nothing happens and the screen remains silent. Only with lots of trial and error and unplugging things and long delays can I get the PC back up. Now it seems to me unlikely that the printer has changed settings during the period of use with the laptop, as I understand the changes I made to have registered on the laptop, not on the printer. I wonder idly whether there's some sort of issue with static electricity, as the problem occurs as soon as I plug the cable in. But I'm at a loss. Any suggestions gratefull received! Thanks. Tim no spam please |
#2
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PC freezes when I plug printer cable in
It seems that in the process of unplugging and re-plugging, some hardware
component has come adrift or been damaged. Check that the printer cable connection is OK, with no bent pins. Check that all other connectors are pushed firmly home, including power connectors. If that reveals nothing, get a set of hardware diagnostic software and give the system a good testing. -- Jeff Richards MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User) "Tim Synge" wrote in message oups.com... Hi, I hope someone may be able to help. If you think this would be better posted to a different group, please let me know, as I am new to this particular corner of usenet! I have a Pentium II running Win98. I use a Canon Bubblejet printer with it and all has been fine for several years. Last weekend, I borrowed a laptop running Windows XP and plugged my printer into that machine to do some printing. Again, all worked fine. In the course of printing, I changed one or two "properties" settings in the print dialogue box. Now that I am back on my own desktop, I find that every time the printer gets anywhere near the PC, the PC freezes completely. And by "anywhere near", I mean plugging in a printer cable, with components on or off. Absolutely no action at all - Ctrl Alt Del does nothing, the cursor vanishes and only by removing the power completely can I make any progress. Then when I try to restart the PC, the fan comes on and there's a click or two as if the disk drive is about to launch into action, but nothing happens and the screen remains silent. Only with lots of trial and error and unplugging things and long delays can I get the PC back up. Now it seems to me unlikely that the printer has changed settings during the period of use with the laptop, as I understand the changes I made to have registered on the laptop, not on the printer. I wonder idly whether there's some sort of issue with static electricity, as the problem occurs as soon as I plug the cable in. But I'm at a loss. Any suggestions gratefull received! Thanks. Tim no spam please |
#3
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PC freezes when I plug printer cable in
Thanks Jeff,
I'll try this. Of course, I will only be able to use diagnostic software if I can get the PC back up in the first place! I haven't quite been able to pin down exactly what series of unplugging and reconnecting actions get it going - it's almost as if the hard drive is failing, but then even putting a boot disk in the A drive doesn't help. At the moment, it's not playing ball at all. Tim. |
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