compeye simplex scanner: o/s = w98se

after a while of extended use, my scanner picks up everything too light, even the back cloth is no longer dark, and everything is smudgy and glary. also the self sizing does not work.

if I strip it and clean the inside of the glass it goes back to normal. this is the only thing that I have found to work. yet the glass is never dirty.

I am wondering if the prolonged use is creating a heat build up within the case, and when I open it to clean then the heat escapes.

has any body had any similar probs ?

also

I thought I'd check the driver, having just looked at the compeye sight, but cant find my scanner listed in device manager, nor my camera.

You ask the toughest questions..lol. Umm, no, haven't had that problem, but did notice long ago that my scanner scans "lighter" when it's still warming up, so I tend to Preview several times until "looks" darker on screen. Therefore, I think your heat theory may be correct. I also noticed that I get a better scan by putting the pic in the middle of the scanner bed rather than at the very top.

My scanner is not listed in Device Manager either..nor is my Printer. Scanner under Printers in My Computer..but I have a parallel port scanner, so unsure as to that.

Hi kay, thanks for reply.

funny thing, it went u/s today, so I undid it & seperated, went slightly better. undid it again & cleaned glass, went worse. tried again, no difference. so I changed from greyshades to colour, still not right, changed back to greyshades, worked fine.

have used it for about three hours on both greyshade & colour since with no probs. I'm sure it will happen again, but at the moment I have probably a couple more days scanning to do to complete a project, so I'm hoping that I can keep it going.

I think I need to re-format & set up again anyway. but thats another story.

my scanner is on the lpt port (printer) in fact the cable goes to a switch box where I select HP printer, canon printer or scanner. but I have d/l a dll in case I need to change it, but cant find it anywhere to check .

It's possible if you've had the scanner awhile and used it a lot that the light "bulb" is going bad..isn't it? We've never taken a scanner apart so I have no idea if one chucks the scanner altogether, or can buy a new light "bulb." Remember reading that the light gizmo in my scanner supposedly good for thousands of hours, but our ordinary "stick it in a light fixture" bulbs say something similar and it doesn't always work that way.