Discussion on:

Fix for problematic parallel printer port in Windows XP

Don't follow this part of the advice:

"As soon as the system restarts, you?ll want to reinstall the printer. Reconnect the cable to the parallel port on the back of the computer and turn on the printer."

Never do a "hot" parallel connection or you risk shorting out your motherboard or your printer. Shut down and power off the system and the printer before connecting the parallel cable. Also, if your printer has both a USB port and a parallel port, spend $5 and get yourself a USB cable and ditch the parallel connection.

That is interesting. I have switched printer cables for years between computers, while they were on, and never had a problem.

Even you and I, and million others did hot parallel connect-disconnect since the beginning of Personal Computer era, and nothing happened, - this is not right and can’t be a recommendation for somebody to do that.

Everything that require a screwdriver on a connector (and not only) are not hot-pluggable.

There are specially designed devices for hot plugging, but not parallel port.

I've never had a board short out due to plugging/unplugging a parallel cable while a box is running. I think this one lies within the realm of myth and old wives tale.

I've owned and or have been working on computers since 1984 and have never seen this problem. Where does this info come from?

Whether you want to believe it or not, it is NOT wise to unplug/plug devices when the system is powered up. The few notable exceptions are USB and possibly FireWire devices that were designed for that purpose.

Yes, I have been guilty of the same behavior in the past, but have learned my lessons well !!! I may not have "blown" the motherboard, but I have had occasion to "blow-out" the serial/parallel controllers, the PCI controllers, the IDE controllers on motherboards and even video display adaptors due to the "haste makes waste" syndrome. Some of the previous problems can be overcome by popping in an IDE controller (unfortunately into an ISA slot) or another video card just to partially revive a system.

I make no excuses for past behavior. Sometimes the lesson can be quite costly if the person doing the job destroys some vital component on a friend's, co-worker's or customer's system.

An A/B box when sitched from one device to another makes a connection to the port while the computer's power is turned on. These were used safely for years. When digital printers came out that couldn't handle this it was advised to power off the printer not the computer before switching or get a digital box.

I think you do what you want with your own
equipment. But it's better to be conservative
with someone else's stuff -- a friend's or a
customer's. The A/B switch may be safe
because it removes the site of the switchover
to a location "down the line" from the
immediate vicinity of the port itself --
somewhat like unplugging a power block from
the wall before unplugging it from the
computer or other equipment. I know you can
ruin a serial port by hot plugging/unplugging,
I'veseen it done. Anyway, I shut down first.

There are 2 primary electrical issues with hot insertion. 1) inrush current, 2) static discharge. Of these #2 is the most common and problematic. The A/B box maintains a common ground. Therefore you don't develop a discontinuity, so don't develop a charge that needs to be discharged.

Even if you power off the equipment, if you don't use proper ESD precautions you could damage one or both units upon cable connection. (BTW, I never power down for cable connection.)

I've been doing the same changing printer cables bettween computers and never had any problem but it hapens that I try to use one of those usb and parallel cable and I followed the instructions such as discribed in the manual and when I was connecting the usb into the computer it disable the mouse and the Keyboard It was hard for me to get it work again until I reset the mainboard and I have to do some fixes to it then it work again. thanks godness that I didn't have to buy a new one.

Also, check the BIOS and try different parallel port setting, such as EPP, Bi-directional, EPP+ECP, try it with DMA or without if your particular BIOS supports these settings. Don't be afraid to experiment. Also be sure you have a good cable, preferably 10-12 feet max if that will suit your situation.

Hot plugging your parallel device shouldn't pose a problem and your advice is sound. One thing I could suggest is that both the PC and the device be powered up before making the connection. Boot up voltage surges can occur and get passed through theparallel connection. If both devices are powered, their voltage demands are met and stable for the most part. It's also a good idea to have both devices on surge suppression

One thing to NEVER do is hot plug your keyboard. Big NO NO

Okay, I confess that I tried to do a hot swap on a PS/2 keyboard. Doh, fried the keyboard. I lucked out by not frying the motherboard. First time, last time.

USB printing still has a long ways to go before it will approach the stability and reliability of parallel ports. As it stands right now, I'll take a parallel printer any day over a USB model. Parallel just works, while USB can be hit or miss.

Back when I first got into computers, I too used to 'hot swap' parallel cables with the PC powered and even used A/B switchboxes on a few PC with no problems. I stopped doing it about 6 or 7 years ago when I plugged in a parallel cable to my boss'slaptop while the laptop was powered (the printer was turned off, too) and blew the parallel port on his PC. Thank God he was getting a new one at the end of the month anyway. As for A/B switchboxes, check the dosumentation first. Some of the cheaper ones are not designed to be 'switched' while the devices are powered. The same boss of mine whose laptop port I blew, learned his lesson the hard way about a year later. He had his desktop PC hooked up to an A/B switchbox, which was in turn connected to a dot-matrix printer and a laser printer. All devices were powered when he flipped the switch over to the dot-matrix and he blew the port. That wouldn't have happened if he hadn't have been so cheap and bought a 'good' switch box that wasdesigned for hot-switching the devices.

So my advice is just to play it safe; if the device isn't designed to be hot-swappable, don't hot swap it.

A 'hot' parallel connection would be connecting the parallel cable with the printer powered on. That can cause a shorting, but not what was suggested in the article. When we are swapping printers, we dont power off our computers just to connect the printers. The correct thing to do is to connect the printer and then switch on the power, which is what the article has said in the first place.

If blowing the parallel port were a common occurrence it would certainly have happened to many more of us by now.

It used to be the case that hot-swapping an AT keyboard could blow its port. This has definitely happened to me in the past. I did hear tell that this could be a problem with PS2 ports but I have no actual evidence to substantiate this.

Within the network I adminstrate there are a few XP machines. Two of which where upgrades from Windows 2000. These two have intermitent printing problems. We print a lot of wire frame models and graphics daily, and occationally the print from these two terminals comes out missing or garbbled. Any recommendations?

On our network I see garbled graphics print jobs that show garbled text and or blank pages. What I have found most often a problem with the printer driver that is installed on the host machine for the printer in question. Usually an updated PCL5* or PCL6* driver will solve the problem.

Check your registry. You may have change it.
Especially if you use a 3rd party software to install printer.ie...HP, EPSON...etc.
This will cause your new hardware wizard not to recoginize the printer reinstall. Also check your .dll's, twain driver's, system drivers.

On my home network I had this problem connecting to an Epson Photo Printer attached to another PC. On the advice of Epson - I installed the printer as local then changed the path through the browse option in the printer properties. No problems since.

uninstall first the default printer in the previous o.s. before you proceed installing windows xp.

I have a HP 622c inkjet that has only the drivers loaded from what is available in XP. HPs web site doesn't have drivers.
The issue I have is that whatever I print, from a blank notepad document to a complex immage, my CPU use shoots to 100% and doesn't come down untill the page is fully exited from the printer.

My Brother MFC7300c will not print in XP no matter what I do, what is the problem? Has anyone experienced this before?

this is covered by a patch you can download from Microshaft's Web update site. From your start menu choose Windows Update and then follow the steps.

Win2K and Xp seem to be a bit more picky about parallel cables than 95 or 98. I have seen users on their second or third computer printer combination still trying to use a worn out cable from Windows 3.1 days. I carry a known good IEEE 1284 cable in my bag. Sometimes, a quick cable change is all it takes to get the user back printing.

I've had two occasions where my printer problems were pins in the printer cable having been pushed into the connector so that they didn't make a good connection to the computer. Unplug The cable at the computer and look to see that all the pins arethe same length.

I have been delegated the adminisitrator of our WAN, and have recently upgraded a user to XP Pro. Now I cannot get him connected through HP Jet Direct even after downloading the latest drivers/patches recommended. Does anyone have a suggestion?

I've tried all the procedures described in the article, but they only worked temporarily and then reverted back to the same reported problem.
After fighting this problem for several weeks, I put a PCI parallel board configured to LPT2 setting. This worked for awhile and then reverted back to the same problem. The HP1200 did not have an XP signature. HP finally created an XP patch for the HP1200. After download and install, the problem was solved again temporarily. We were using the PS configuration for the HP1200. After changing to PCL6, the problem was solved, but only using the PCI card. The LPT1 port(on Dell motherboard) still would not work.
On another Dell XP upgrade using an HP6 printer, there were no problems.

We've had several systems experience this phenomenon, all on W2K, usually with plug-n-play printers. Used most of these same fixes. One other is to change BIOS setting to from ECP to EPP.

Next week a client of mine wants me to connect 3 x HP1200 via Jet Direct.

Will come back with any useful experiences

Should I folllow the same advise to attempt to make my parallel scanner work in XP??

My CanoScan FB630P will not work with full acceleration in the bios and had to settle for EPP if I remember correctly but that was the problem for me.

Once that was done it wasn't a problem and the software will always intalle correctly and work fine everytime as long as I don't try to increase the performance of my port.

Just a tough

I've seen this problem on WinXP, Win2K, and on Win9x machines attached to a WinXP LAN and/or VPN. The problem occurs randomly, after long periods during of stability. Even the fixes here mentioned have eventually failed.

The only seemingly permanent fix has been to use the NET command, with the PERSISTENT parameter (on WinXP and Win2k only)to direct printer output to the LPT2 port; i.e. "NET USE LPT2: \\printerhostsharename\printerdevicename PERSISTENT:YES."