Canon LBP-660 Printer trouble.

[Hero999]

I have a Canon LBP-660 which works perfectly on my old PC but it refuses to work on my new PC.

At first I thought it was the parallel port, so I bought a USB to parallel converter cable but that didn't work with either my new or old PC. When booting Windows, it told me it'd found new hardware (a Cannon Printer) but it couldn't locate the drivers. I tried reinstalling the Cannon driver to no avail.

Then I bought a new PCI parallel port card which still doesn't work. I haven't tested it with the old PC yet. This time Windows found the new hardware and I had to install them from a CD which came with the parallel port. I installed them, it gave me a warning saying they're not signed which I ignored. I connected the printer, rebooted again and it asked me if I wanted to install drivers for the printer, I said yeas and it searched through the hard drive and reinstalled the Cannon printer driver.

Both PCs have Windows XP Home 32-bit.

When I boot the old PC, the printer also reboots.

When I boot the new PC, the printer doesn't reboot.

I don't know where to go from here. All that I can say is that I'm very angry, I've now got a headache and a sore throat from shouting bad words at this printer.

 

[Reloadron]

Something you can try Hero. In XP Right Click My Computer and choose Manage. That should open the Computer Management window. In the Left Pane click to expand Services and Applications. Now click and highlight Services. The right pane should populate with Services. Scroll down to Print Spooler. That service should show Automatic under the start up type column. The status column should also show Started.

Right click on the service (Print Spooler) and choose Stop. Right click on it again and choose Properties. Under the General tab Startup Type should be set to Automatic.

Restart the system, leaving the spooler stopped. On restart navigate back and see if the spooler started automatically. See if the printer works.

My read is that with Windows XP that printer should run under Windows 2000 drivers. Anyway, check the print spooler settings as I mentioned.

<EDIT> Additionally the spooler has a dependency on the RPC (Remote Procedure Call) so make sure that service is running and automatic startup. </EDIT>

Ron

 

[Hero999]

I know the printer dirver is Windows 2000, but it's worked under XP before, as you've said it will do. The only time there's normally a problem is when multiple users log on and try to print.

Both the print spooler and RPC services are set to automatic and start when the PC is booted.

I'm using the same Windows install as I did with the other PC, I simply moved the hard drive from the old PC to the new one and did a repair install. Could that be a problem?

I have a nasty feeling it's something to do with the way the old Canon printer driver uses the parallel port. It seems to work with the with the port built-into the old PC's motherboard but not with any add-on ports such as the USB or the PCI port. I think might be problem with the sequence in which Windows loads the drivers. Perhaps it loads the printer driver before the new parallel port and USB drivers?

It's just my theory but if it's true, is there a way to alter this?

I'll try the new parallel port in my old PC to see if it works with the printer.

I need a way to test the parallel port. The problem is, I don't have any spare D-type connectors or I'd rig something up myself.

 

[olly_k]

Look in the bios for any PP settings? Also may sound silly but have you completely deleted the printer from hardware devices and installed software first if you are able?

 

[Hero999]

I shall check the BIOS but I have a feeling the new parallel port might not show up in the BIOS because it doesn't use the BIOS and requires the Windows driver - I couldn't see the port under Linux and I was surprised that Windows needed drivers.

I've reinstalled the printer driver, I could have a go at uninstalling and reinstalling it but I don't think it'll do any good, I'll try that after I've tested the port with the other computer.

 

[olly_k]

Yes of course my mistake bios will only show integrated pp.
I think definitely worth trying to completely remove and reinstall software / drivers.

Good luck!

 

[Reloadron]

I have a nasty feeling it's something to do with the way the old Canon printer driver uses the parallel port. It seems to work with the with the port built-into the old PC's motherboard but not with any add-on ports such as the USB or the PCI port. I think might be problem with the sequence in which Windows loads the drivers. Perhaps it loads the printer driver before the new parallel port and USB drivers?

I have never had the best of luck with adding cards for a parallel port. Been there and done that. The big problem is that the drivers used to address the parallel port are going to look for a standard address. Generally the Usual Address For LPT 1 is 378h - 37Fh and for LPT 2 is 278h - 27Fh. The problem is when any adapter is used the address scheme goes to hell in a hand basket real quick. If you look at the card used in properties it should show you the address. If that address is neither of what I show for LPT 1 or LPT 2 that is the problem.

I had hoped initially starting and stopping the spooler service mi9ght work but the more I think about it I am not so sure. You may be screwed on this one Hero.

Since the system prints on one machine and not the other if the machines were networked with print sharing it might work and that means the printer connected to the system it works with.

Ron

 

[Hero999]

I think I'm just going to leave the printer connected to the old machine.

It's just annoying considering the amount of time I've wasted on it. Fortunately I've not spent too much money as I got most of the stuff off ebay pretty cheaply.

How about the USB parallel port adaptor? Have you had any experience with them?

 

[Reloadron]

No, but I fear the results would be the same. I have used USB to RS232 dongles with mixed results but that is about it. Hell, now RS232 is going away on new systems. I had to add a RS 232 card to this system just to read and run some data acquisition crap I run. I only have one old system here that has a native parallel port. It sucks!

Ron

 

[Hero999]

I asked the ebay seller who provided me with the USB dongle (I bought two) for help and after a couple of emails offered me a refund which I'm not going to bother with as the dongles cost a total of £3.80 (that's for two). I'll probably be able to get the money back by reselling them to someone in the UK, I had to wait for over a month for them to get to me from China, I'm pretty sure someone might pay more to have them shipped with in a day.

I hate it when legacy equipment stops being supported.

I generally resist buying new things because I don't see the point, especially with computers. I tend to keep using the old machine until it stops working and is not worth repairing. When I do upgrade, it tends to be with old hardware, my current PC is my brother's ex-PC, Asus A8N-VM CSM 400MHz motherboard, 2GHz AMD Athlon 64 and 1GB RAM.

I'll going to upgrade the old IDE drive to a new Raptor when I get hold of a molex to SATA power cable for the hard drive which I bought, then noticed that it didn't have the old socket.

 

[Reloadron]

Don't even get me going on the support thing. When I built my last workstation I invested close to $10,000 USD in that build. For the workstation apps I had I chose a commercial graphics card that cost about $2,000 USD. The original build was done using Windows XP Professional. The card I used was the 3D Labs Realizm 800 and shortly after the build (about a year) 3D Labs was bought:

On February 24th 2006, 3DLABS refocused its business and stopped developing its workstation graphics cards for the PC and announced it would focus on its new DMS™ low-power media-rich application processors.

3DLABS continues to support its legacy graphics cards while under their warranty conditions but no longer sells or develops PC graphics cards.

They never released Vista support at all. Period. Thus that workstation still runs XP Pro. Talk about pissed!

Ron