We have a system that is PIII 933 w/ 256 MB of RAM. All of a sudden the system froze. Had to power off to reboot but no go. It is a WIN98 SE OS. It would go thru the DOS stuff and freeze at the C: prompt, just before starting Windows. We tried everything, removed the device to a bare bones system and it still froze. We took some of the hardware to another system and they worked fine. We gave up and decide to call the manufacturer when we notice the HP laserjet IV printer connected to the machine had a paper jam. We had put everything back. We pulled the printer cable and rebooted. Everything came up fine. We cleared the jam and reconnected - it worked. I know there is communication both ways (pc - printer - pc). Why would it cause the system to not boot? Is there a setting we are missing? Thanks for your help in advance.....

Have you gone into your printer set up to see how it's set up.Start>Settings>Printrs folder,right click on your printer,go to properties check out you spool settings and port..also check device manager to see if you have any conflicts.

I check the spool settings on the printer and they are:

Spool print jobs so programs finishes printing faster

Start printing after the first page is spooled

Spool data format: EMF

Enable bi-directional support for this printer

Printer memory: 2MB

There no conficts with port but there are 2 conflicts. They are with the SCSI controller. They are:
- !IOMEGA Clik! Parallel Port Interface
- !IOMEGA Parallel Port Zip Interface

There is an IOMEGA Jaz drive connected to the PC.

Do youknow if your parallel port is configured as ECP becouse that will take up a DMA assignment and that cannot be shared.this is a little out of my league you may have to change some of these ports some can be done thru windows i think a lot of the times it's thru DOS like IRQ assignments hang out and some one with more knowledge on this will get you going in right direction.