HP940c printer Locks UP MY Computer!

**amdkt7** · January 1st, 2002, 02:46 PM

I got a new printer to replace my HP832c. I bought a HP940cvr. It would print the test page fine, but would lock up when printing even a plain text file using notepad. It would lock up when printing anything.
It finally starting working for a few days. Perhaps the problem was intermittent. Then disaster crashed my OS and I had to restore from a backup.
After the restore, I then had to reinstall the printer drivers. Then my problem came right back: Exact same lock up problem. The print job would complete, the paper would shoot out, but as soon as the print job was spooled the system would freeze. Hard reboot required!
I exchanged the printer for a HP940c (same price, not sure what the difference is). Installed the drivers again. Same problem. Also locks up randomly when opening the HP Toolbox.
Some times it works for a while, but I can't trust it to do anything important.

My system is:
AMD 1200 MHZ
Abit KT7
256 meg ram
Win98se
plenty of harddrive space

Help!!!!

**bhess** · January 1st, 2002, 02:50 PM

I'm guessing that you are using it with the USB port? Try another one maybe? Do you have any other USB devices? Sounds like it's not printer related. Since your running win98 I don't think it's driver related but check the web site anyhow.

**amdkt7** · January 1st, 2002, 02:53 PM

I have tried both USB and parallel cable and had the same results, locks up either way....

Thanks for the quick reply. Good Idea

**amdkt7** · January 1st, 2002, 04:07 PM

I got it to work.... I think. I went back to the parallel cable, and used the Windows default HP550c driver. Every print job I try seems to work just fine. It does seem to print differently, some what jerky, but I can't fine any fault with the output.

I even used it to print checks in Quicken and did not have to tweak anything, it all lined up great.

This bugs me to use the "wrong driver", but it does seem to do what I need a printer for.

I have sent an email to HP for help. Perhaps they will have an answer.

I did download the latest driver from HP but to no avail.

**sharder8** · January 1st, 2002, 05:44 PM

When you did your restore, was the USB unplugged? (If you did the restore from a backup, probably not.)

Try un-installing using the CD (if you un-install using Add/Remove Program you will be leaving some files behind that will cause problems.) Then un-plug the printer and the USB cable.

Re-install the printer software and when it is done installing reboot your computer and plug the printer and USB back in.

If you're still having problems, let me know and I'll e-mail you a more detailed set of instructions that I got from an HP Tech.

Harder

**Richard Cranium** · January 1st, 2002, 05:51 PM

1. Boot to SAFE mode by pressing F8 on start-up
2. Remove drivers
3. Re-Boot to SAFE MODE and run DEFRAG
4. Re-install drivers while in SAFE mode

Then boot to Normal mode.

**Tom Jones** · January 1st, 2002, 06:20 PM

Just a tip....Use the MS driver for HP instead of the HP driver and see if that doesn't fix your problems....If they don't have the exact same driver try any of the 900 series....This usually works for me..

Tom

**amdkt7** · January 1st, 2002, 10:49 PM

I went in safe mode and ran both uninstalls for my original printer and the new printer. I ran msconfig and found several hp programs were still called from win.ini and the registry. The also were a ton of files in windows/system named hpz*.*. Most seemed to belong to hp so I backed them up then deleted them. Windows complained about missing vxd files so I restored them.

I tried installing the drivers again, but it would not work properly with usb.

I'M guessing the problem is remnants of the old printer driver.

Harder,
I would appericiate the info from the HP tech on how to completely remove the old drivers.

My next step may be to back up my system, format c: and install windows and the printer drivers only to see if that works.

Takes a lot of time to do all of that...
Thanks

**storm2k** · January 1st, 2002, 10:54 PM

first off, head on over here and download yourself the new driver. it was just realased in the middle of december, so sounds like hp had to backtrack themselves and fix some issues with their original retail driver for your printer.

the driver that shipped with the printer probably had errors in it. it's not the best way to do business, but it might have happened inadvertantly.

**sharder8** · January 1st, 2002, 11:23 PM

amdkt7 --

Sorry to say, but I don't have the info on my computer anymore, I will start going through my backup info files when I get home from work tomorrow (getting ready to go to work until 0600), and will post it as soon as I can.

Harder

**Tom Jones** · January 1st, 2002, 11:24 PM

Before you format and install....Did you try the HP printer driver that comes with Microsoft....if not it might save you some work.....First delete all instances of printers from your printer folder and add your HP using the MS driver....

**amdkt7** · January 2nd, 2002, 08:25 AM

thanks Storm2k for the driver info. I did download that one it does the same thing.

I'm currently using the MS HP550c driver with the parallel cable. This works ok. You can't do the print cart. alignment, but it looks ok to me.

I tried the 550c driver because that is the one HP recomends as an alternative. There is no 900 series drivers in Win98.

Perhaps I could use one of the 600 or 800 drivers. I would like to get it to work on the USB port. My 832 worked fine that way. With the 550c driver and the parallel port it seems to make my machine sluggish while printing.

I'm not sure if I can get the 550c driver to work on the USB port. I tried once and It did not work, but now I don't remember what happened.