[NeuDude]

I originall posted a topic in SevenForums the other day, though I recently found a closed thread here with a problem that sounds very similar to the one I am having; however the one response it got was very dissatisfying to my disappointment.

The thread I found on here stated the following:

I work for an organization with about 300 employees and almost all have computers. I have experienced the following issue on several machines over the years and still cannot find an answer anywhere on the internet, so I am posting here.

I have an HP business desktop that has two parallel ports in it: LPT1 and LPT2. On a rare occasion the printer connected to LPT1 will jam and I have to clear the paper out of the paper path. After I clear the jam, the computer is no longer able to print anything to LPT1. If I use the application that prints to LPT1 again, I get an error in the application stating "The requested resource is in use. (170)" Others on the internet have reported similar errors and in a few cases, the exact same error, but no luck with a solution. Further, there is no error in the Event Viewer's application or system logs.

So, I have tried:
+ uninstalling LPT1 port from the Device Manager, reboot, and still no luck. Same error.
+ uninstalling LPT1 port from the Device Manager, shutdown, disable the parallel port entirely, boot into Windows, shutdown, re-enable the parallel port, boot into Windows. Same error.
+ Reassign LPT1 port to LPT3. Same error.

More info... Turns out that any other printer I try connecting to the LPT1 port is not able to printed to. Plug said printer back into LPT2 or LPT3 and it works fine again. Problem remains: can't print anything to any device in LPT1.

Even more info... The printer normally connected to LPT1 is fine. Take it to another computer and it prints beautifully.

Still more info... I know that the LPT1 port is not experiencing a hardware failure. How do I know this? Because if I delete everything on the computer's C drive (including the partitions) and reinstall Windows from scratch, the LPT1 works fine.

Finally, I will add this: I have several computers that this has happened to over the years. These machines are used at our front gate where we sell tickets to our venue. These machines are virtually identically configured and have the same models of printers connected to the same LPT ports. The printer connected to LPT1 is called a BOCA ticket printer and it is not detected at all by Windows on any computer. That is fine by us because, normally, we are able to print to the BOCA on LPT1 fine. Thus, on a typical computer here, if you go into the Printers folder in XP you will see nothing connected to LPT1.

I am stuck on this one. I configure Exchange servers, firewalls, VMWare hosts, implement SharePoint sites, yadda yadda yadda.. pretty much everything here but I can't figure out this one darn thing. Oh great Internet, is there anyone out there with an answer? I'm tired of spending the better part of a day reinstalling Windows and all the apps each time this happens to a machine.

Thank you.

The reply to which was:

Parallel ports are deprecated and you'll find very little support for that obsolete interface. It has been some time since computers even had them when new. You'd be better off with USB printers are adapters.

Now, as much as I agree with this statement, under certain circumstances people are unable to purchase a newer printer or have had problems with adapters. My circumstance is both. My boss does not wish to have to purchase another printer and we used to use an adapter, but the adapter caused a lot of anomalies when printing through it and was actually fried via lightning recently. We ended up installing a PCI Express Parallel card due to the loss of our Parallel-to-USB.

So I wish to reopen this issue, so to speak, in an attempt to find a solution for my current circumstance.


My explanation of my problem when I posted in SevenForums was the following:

Recently, about a week ago, in the office that I work we had some lightning which fried the parallel-to-usb chord connected to our Dot Matrix printer. Not a problem since we had a PCI Express Parallel Card sitting around waiting to be used and also a couple parallel-to-parallel chords. I installed it in the computer and it worked perfectly; however, after every reboot of the computer the printer is then viewed as "Offline" and the only fix I have found is to go into Device Manager, go to the card's Properties, go to the Port Settings Tab and, with 3 LPT ports available in a dropdown, change it from LPTX to LPTY (X being whatever port it was set on before the reboot and Y being one of the other two ports available to choose from in the dropdown menu).

Again the port settings that I am altering are in the Parallel Card's Properties menu, not the Printer's Port Settings. If anyone has an answer for me or any information on it please let me know as soon as you can. Even though it isn't an emergency type problem it does get a tad annoying to have to go through the trouble of changing the LPT setting on the card every morning.



----===Updated Details===----

Card Make: Rosewill
Card Model: RC-302E

Computer has no On-Board Parallel Port

Now, I am very tech savvy and this problem I am having seems like it should have a fairly simple answer, possibly involving IRQ conflicts or some other software issue that can be resolved fairly easily for me, though as much as I have tried I cannot find the answer on my own.

Also, I am new to this particular forum, and I do stress that I would greatly appreciate only positive input or questions on my situation. Please DO NOT inform me about Parallel being obsolete as i do agree with you, though as I said before I cannot simply purchase a new printer or another adapter.

[NeuDude]

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[NeuDude]

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[NeuDude]

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[NeuDude]

On SevenForums I recieved a reply from someone going by the name pscowboy stating this:

Some ideas to follow up on.

How many PCI-e slots do you have? Try the one furthest from the cpu.

There are two versions of the card: 1.0 and 1.0.0.6. Can you see a version stamp on the card? If not, look in Device Manager under the Details tab & change the dropdown to Hardware ID to see if that helps. Also, in the Resources tab, is "Never use an interupt" selected?

I would download both drivers from Rosewill, unzip them into separate folders and update Driver in Device Manager starting with the 1.0.0.6

Edit: You slipped in an update while I was typing. With old legacy stuff, you need the printer to be on powering down the pc and before powering up. As to leaving it on overnight, it's only consuming a trickle of current; maybe 15 cents worth?

I checked all of what pscowboy suggested and it was all in place without further altering of hardware or settings.

Somehow, it seems the problem has resolved itself or I somehow accidentally fixed it when switching the port settings. The printer no longer goes "Offline" when the computer is rebooted and the printer appears to no longer need to be left on 24/7 for it to stay "Ready".

The only thing I can theorize is that it's because I put it on LPT3 rather than 1 or 2, and that since 1 and 2 have defaulted IRQ numbers that something else was trying to share one or both of those numbers; however, I am pretty sure I had it set to LPT3 another time and still had the problem occur, though I could be mistaken I suppose.

In any case, the problem has been resolved for the moment.

I do wish I knew exactly what the problem was if my theory is incorrect. That being the case I will leave this thread open for any future discussion on this problem and perhaps what has been posted here and any future posts later on will help other individuals with the same issues.

On a final note on the matter, I am a tad surprised and disappointed that I had no feedback from this forum on the issue. Due to this I am unsure if I will use this forum much in the future, if at all. On other forums I had at least one reply either asking for more info or actually suggesting fixes and settings changes.

I do hope that my problem was not ignored simply because the tech I am asking about is "out of date". I stress I am not accusing all of you for purposely ignoring me because I imagine some of you simply did not know what to suggest or ask, but I do hope that if I post on this forum again I can get some feedback and not be overlooked.