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Printer message shows communication problems when connected via a usb cabl

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8 replies

by gkg44

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I had to take my pc out of service for a while and wanted to hook my dell AIO printer up to my laptop until I can put the PC back into service. I connected the printer which worked great with the pc, to the dell laptop using a usb cable. I can't get it to work, get an error message about no communication with the printer. I have downloaded the driver from Dell and any updates available. I have checked the settings in my firewall. I have rebooted, changed the usb port connection and have made sure the printer is set up to use a usb port. nothing works. The laptop uses vista home premium, whereas the pc that I had it connected to previously used XP. Any thoughts?

8 replies

by riukev

It sounds like the wrong driver is installed. Did you download the driver from Dell's website or load from a disk? If you downloaded, did you get the Vista driver?

by gkg44

I think I did download the vista driver.
If I am not mistaken, I first downloaded the xp driver, then realized the error and downloaded the vista driver. Should I delete the xp driver?

by riukev

It wouldn't hurt to delete the xp driver and then reinstall the printer using the Vista driver. Have you tried a different USB cable (just to eliminate everything you can)?

by prrethish

Download and install the original driver and application for u r printer

by gkg44

As I said, I didn't have the disk so I downloaded the driver from Dell.
I did download the wrong one (xp) the first time.
I'll delete that and try another cable.

by gkg44

This is pretty weird. I uninstalled the printer driver and application for the all in one dell inkjet printer. I got two files from Dell and downloaded them, the driver and the application. The program works nicely, tells me the printer's ink is low, etc. but if I cue to print it still gives me the error, can't communicate or something like that. The application opens on the laptop and looks like everything should work. I'm stuck.

by riukev

If you look at the printer properties, what port is the printer using? I've seen some printers install themselves using LPT1 when they were connected via USB, and they wouldn't work until I switched the port to USB. If that doesn't work, then I'd see about hooking the printer back up to your XP machine (if possible) to verify it works at all. Also, my personal preference is to usually leave the application off and just load the driver, but who knows, maybe they aren't working well together.

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