Epson Stylus 740c printer--printing rubbish

JLamyJLamy UK
edited December 2003 in Hardware
Hi. My friend cannot get his Epson Stylus 740c printer to print coorectly. Every time he tries to print he gets continous pages of garbled rubbish. Cant stop until he switch off printer AND reboot Windows. Have tried reinstalling Win2000 drivers from website, but problem persists. Have checked cables and all is fitted properly. Any ideas to what this could be? The Parallel port is set to ECP in the BIOS. Thanks in advance.

Comments

  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited December 2003
    Generally whenever I've had that problem it's always been fixed by changing the drivers. The bios setting if wrong normal will just cause it not to print at all in my experience.

    You could try switching it to ECP+EPP in the bios and see if that makes a difference.

    Do you have a bi-directional printer cable?

    Another option (if your printer supports it) is to hook it up via USB and see if that makes a difference

    Does it print a test page or is that all giberish also?
  • JLamyJLamy UK
    edited December 2003
    Test page is garble too. We tried deleting all the printers in the "Printers and faxes" window. Then reinstalled drivers downloaded from Epson site for Windows 2000. We made sure that printer was switched on before windows loaded. Still no luck so we were out of ideas short of changing cable (no idea if current cable is bi-dir or not), or just change printer totally. To my knowledge the printer only has Parallel port and no USB.
  • NebulousNebulous New York, The Empire State
    edited December 2003
    My guess is swap printers completely. Try and get a printer with USB, it'll save lots of trouble.
  • JLamyJLamy UK
    edited December 2003
    Well yeah it is what I have suggested, as he said its about 5 years old now. Its just the bother og getting new one, and the fear of it going wrong for no apparent reason, like this case.
  • NebulousNebulous New York, The Empire State
    edited December 2003
    Yeah I know, but heck the printers are cheap now. I got one from walmarts for 34 bux! Lexmark z25. Prints both paper and pics. Comes with Photo Impression software and a trial 10 pack of kodak softgloss picture paper. Took me no more than 5 minutes to setup and i was already printing up pics of my cat, lol.

    Can't beat that for 34 bux and the prints are great!
  • JLamyJLamy UK
    edited December 2003
    OK cool. Glad you are happy with your bargain! I think I recommend canon cos their carttridges are cheaper, and print quality good too. Emailed Epson tech support, nothing back yet apart from automated one listing a few trouble shooting steps. Tried their e-chat feature and the java applet used for the function wasnt on their server!
  • NebulousNebulous New York, The Empire State
    edited December 2003
    WoW. I think you're gonna have a hard time getting support for a 5 y/o relic :( Hope your friend gets a new printer tho, it'll save him alot of grief.

    Good luck :)
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited December 2003
    baring a new printer I'd try a new printer cable first.
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