JP1 Remotes

Just yesterday, my wife noticed that she could no longer print to our HP 3100 LaserJet. This printer has always proved problematic with WINXP (driver problems), so I wasn't surprised.

It had been at least a week since we printed last, and over the weekend I had disconnected the printer and did a little JP1'ing. I assumed the drivers got screwy on the disconnect / reconnect.

To my chagrin, however, it appears that I cannot get my parrallel port to work at all. I've tried installing a generic printer. No go. I've tried echo'ing print to LPT1 via DOS and that doesnt' work either.

Next I'll have to order another cable to test with, but I'm curious if there is any way a short in my JP1 cable could have caused this wierd behavior?

In a Win2K machine I had a similar problem. The fix was to go into device manager and delete the parallel port. While in device manager, you should also look under view|Show hidden devices and delete any other parallel ports you see. Then reboot. The port should be recognized and WinXP should install the drivers. It is also posible that in Mainboard BIOS that the parallel port has been disabled.

If you can see the parallel port again in device manager, try the JP1 cable. If that works, go to HP's website and get the latest WinXP drivers for the Printer and install them per their instructions.

I'm sure you may know all of these steps but it's always the simple stuff

One last thought if you really loaded DOS with a floppy and used an old Epson printer, then your DOS test might be a valid test of the motherboard, but if you just went to the command prompt in WinXP, I'm not sure that the parallel port or the printer would recognize those commands. My point is that it could be that the parallel port is fried, but IMO very unlikely (and even less likely that the JP1 cable was the cause). Since you have had Printer driver problems in the past, then that is the most likely source of the problem.

Thanks Jon...

I did already uninstall the parallel port and let XP reinstall it. No fix.

I only used a DOS window to print, following directions on the XP troubleshooter. I'm not going to bother booting DOS.

Tonight I'll try replacing the cable first.

Thanks.