Scanner Disappears?

Basic info. Windows XP Pro machine, 768 RAM, 933, all OS updates current...

We just got a Microtek ScanMaker 5700 in as an eval. device [It's attached directly to a USB port on the machine, not a hub]. For the most part, we like it quite a bit more than the most of the scanners we're using, but we have a strange issue with it.

Whenever we use it, we have to cycle the power on it...and after the scanner goes to "standby" mode, still powered up, it disappears from Windows...in other words, when you try to scan something new, you get a "scanner not found" message until you reboot the scanner. Then, by the time you scan the third or fourth job, the PC just hangs. [I'm assuming that's a memory tweak yet to be perfected, so that doesn't concern me as much.]

Latest drivers installed for the 5700 [version 5.75].

I seem to remember that this might be a WIA conflict...[Windows Image Acquisition]...any ideas?

Thanks all.

1) Do you have other USB devices installed on the computer?

2) Have you tried the other USB port (most computers come with at least 2)?

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Draggar:
<strong>1) Do you have other USB devices installed on the computer?

2) Have you tried the other USB port (most computers come with at least 2)?</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">1] Yep, they go through a powered hub. I tried d/c'ing all USB devices but the scanner, and 2] Microtek's documentation instructs you to put on on the "lowest direct PC/USB port...done, no change.

I've got 4 USB ports on the machine, and it doesn't seem to make any difference which one it's connected to.

I would suggest trying to reboot into safe mode (Will XP allow you to do that?). Go into the device manager, and see how many scanners are in there.
Remove them all.

I would do the same with the USB ports, but I've never attempted that before, if you know the PC will reconize them OK with the next reboot, then do it.

Then, remove the scanners manualy form the registry (if you know how to do that).

You might have several copies of that scanner running, even though normal bootup mode only shows one.

Did some hunting around...BTW, I looked around in Safe mode, everything looked fine, the registry is cleaned about once a week [since this is a test machine, stand alone] and in the registry, things look fine, no duplicate entries found.

Went into Admin tools/Services, and turned WIA off...seems to be the trick. Since we're using a lot of high end scanner/imaging software, I'm guessing that the "built in" Windows XP scanner/camera app was conflicting with everything else.

As to the lockup issue, I created a separate virtual memory/temp folder for just the imaging apps on a secondary HD, and that seems to have solved that problem, too.

Keep your fingers crossed...hopefully this'll keep working well.

Thanks, Draggar, your input helped to brainstorm this issue.

Np & Good luck. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />