epson's 660 and 740 under98se

[Sandwich]

I upgraded my home networked printer to an epson c84. I took my old 740 and my daughter's660 (the college girl got a new c84 also) (BestBuy Dsm,Ia $99.99 witha 20.00 rebate) to my office. If that sounds backward, I'm on my computer at home far more than at the office.

In any case. I'm having problems installing either of these printers. I can use the printer okay when I use a driver from the old stylus color esp2 bought in Jan95 that either the660 or the740 printer will replace. Of course I can't see how much ink is in the cartriges with this driver and many options are lost. It does print at a normal speed. When I install the drivers for either machine It seems like everything installs just fine. I can print a test page w/o errors------------ BUT it takes at least 5, if not more, minutes to do!-------- A line is printed then a 30 to 40 second wait then another line and another wait over and over. I've tried emf and raw and print to page directly and tried each different spool setting???????? The machine is a compaq with an amd-k7-600mhz win98se.
My analysis would seem to indicate that the print job seems to be at a very low priority for this computer when using it's driver????

What else might be causing this to happen

Should I disconnect all printers and cables ie not just printers at one end of the cable and boot up at least once without anything on that lpt port---- maybe ever delete it in device manager let windows find it again. etc and try to install again?

[NooNoo]

Why not?
But go to safe mode first and see whats in device manager in the way of ghosts (duplicates). If you find any, delete ALL the devices, since you don't know which one windows is using.

Finally check the printer port settings in bios. Some printers want ecp, others epp, others dont seem to care.

[Sandwich]

Why not?
But go to safe mode first and see whats in device manager in the way of ghosts (duplicates). If you find any, delete ALL the devices, since you don't know which one windows is using.

Finally check the printer port settings in bios. Some printers want ecp, others epp, others dont seem to care.

Wel this am I did the above and found that the lpt port was conflicting with an irq 7 I could change it to 11 but software would not install correctly. I get now an error saying something like S0 registry something couldn't be created.
And of course the printer isn't seen when I go to print.
I think now something in the registry needs to cleared before this thing will install.

[NooNoo]

LPT needs irq 5 or 7 to work reliably. Sounds like you have ACPI problems.

[Sandwich]

LPT needs irq 5 or 7 to work reliably. Sounds like you have ACPI problems.

Which mean what? Can I install one or repair it?

[Sandwich]

Which mean what? Can I install one or repair it?

Will a full reinstall do the trick? It's got a compaq bios screen that I've never gotten into before? Is it f10 that you push?

[NooNoo]

ACPI is about how 98se handles the hardware.

Depending on the bios settings, depends on what 98 does. There is a vast difference between 98se and 98 on this issue so make sure we are talking about 98se.

Whats the compaq model number?

Yes f10 when the cursor flashes top right will get you into bios - you have less than 5 seconds to do it.

A full reinstall will sort the problem if you have never tinkered with your bios. You may also want to checkout hp.com for rompaq updates.

[Sandwich]

Will a full reinstall do the trick? It's got a compaq bios screen that I've never gotten into before? Is it f10 that you push?

I also think I know where the conflict is. I have an external modem connection where the modem is on com3 which is using irq7 the sound card is using irq5. Com1 is unused but the modem will not install to that for some reason. There is no com2 that the computer finds after I deleted it in device manager.

[Sandwich]

I also think I know where the conflict is. I have an external modem connection where the modem is on com3 which is using irq7 the sound card is using irq5. Com1 is unused but the modem will not install to that for some reason. There is no com2 that the computer finds after I deleted it in device manager.

Yes were using 98 2nd ed. My office manager will have to back things up before we reinstall! I'm not savy enough with what they run on that machine to do it my self today.

[NooNoo]

Turn off com2 (serial port) in bios. Uninstall that modem, reboot and reinstall, should be on a different port then.

[Sandwich]

Turn off com2 (serial port) in bios. Uninstall that modem, reboot and reinstall, should be on a different port then.

Thanks NOONOO