Hi all!
:)

I have a problem with an HP 2200c USB scanner.

I searched the forums, and found someone having a similar issue, in that the scanner software will not see the scanner.

Machine is an HP brand, but I forget the model(I will find this out, and post later on tonight)

Printer and monitor are HP too.(will get models of these too)

Both the printer and the scanner are USB type, connected to two seperate USB ports on the back of the HP box.

Sometimes, when you run the scanner software, it reports that it cannot find the scanner.

The machine has XP Home on it.

If you pull out the USB and power plugs from the back of the scanner, then put them back in(power first), then the software sees the scanner, and can use it in a 50% fashion.

What I mean by this, is that you can scan to a file ONLY.
The other options in the HP scanner program, such as scan to printer, or scan to web, cause the scanner software to crash, and XP reports(very apologetically), that the program has to close.

I have tried unplugging the scanner, and then un-installing the software, followed by a cold-start, followed by re-installing the software, followed by plugging the scanner back in.

At this point, the system sees the scanner, whirrs for a few seconds, then announces that the hardware is ready for use.

When you run the scanner software, the exact same problem still exists.

I downloaded the HP drivers from the HP site, using the link given in the other post here about this issue, and un-installed the old drivers and put the downloaded ones in using the same process as above, but the exact same problem.

Next, I un-installed both the printer AND the scanner, and put them BOTH on the two un-used USB ports on the back(the box has four), and then re-installed drivers, and connected the devices to the USB cables. Printer works fine, but scanner still un-co-operative.

Anyone have any other ideas I could try?

When it works, it does scan fine(to a file), but this is not really acceptable, and the guy is getting very frustrated with all the cable swapping(which is fair enough.)


MM.

Printer = Scanjet 656c, Scanner = Scanjet 2200c, Box = Pavillion 521a, Monitor = Pavillion mx70.

MM.

can you try a different usb cable/usb port?
perhaps something is wrong with the connectivity.

Haven't tried another cable - that's a thought - will try that.
Have put the scanner on different physical port - no difference.


MM.

Have you had a look in Device Manager? Any thing odd there under USB Controllers?

You might want to Remove all instances of USB hubs in Device Manger...reboot and let Windoze find and reinstall the drivers...

I would suggest looking in normal Windoze and then have a second look in SAFEMODE...perform the removal in SAFEMODE however...

Cool, thanks - will try this... MM.

Well, folks, i'm sorta stumped here.

Put new USB cable on the scanner, and then restarted in safe-mode, and deleted the USB devices and the reference to the hub, and re-started.

XP Home discovers a USB root-hub, and installs the software for it.
It correctly ID's the printer, and sets that up correctly(can print test page).
It detects the problimatic scanner, and sets that up too.
No errors are reported during all this, but when you try to use the scanner, the same error again...

Is it possible, that the scanner hardware itself is faulty, or is it more likely something in the main PC box.

I don't really want to re-install the whole box to fix a scanner, that is only used every now and again.

I think the box is VERY underpowered, being only a Duron 1.3GHz with 128MB of RAM & 5400RPM HDD running XP home.

This kind of machine, I would generally put Win98SE on...
(I don't build an XP box with anything less then a 2HGz CPU and 512MB RAM - I generally don't upgrade any 98SE box with anything less then 256MB RAM, if you want any sort of speed...)

If it were _MY_ box, I would flatten it, and put a copy of 98SE on it.

Any more ideas, people?


MM.

I think the box is VERY underpowered, being only a Duron 1.3GHz with 128MB of RAM & 5400RPM HDD running XP home.

Actually, that system should run XP pretty well if it had 256MB RAM or more. Minimum CPU for XP is 400, it actually runs fairly decent on anything above a 800MHz or so as long as it has plenty RAM. Switch to Classic desktop and taskbar, cut down on the applications running at startup, clean out the spyware, and it should get decent performance. I see XP on customers' machines all the time with comparable hardware, once it's cleaned up and the graphics cut down to something sensible, it should run ok.

I've had similar problems with several XP machines and USB printers or all in one units and have never figured out what the problem is. The printer will work fine for a week or two then XP decides it doesn't see it any more, the only way I've found to cure it is to completely remove and reinstall the printer driver/software and that only works for another week or two then it starts all over. That's not confined to HP devices, Lexmark and Epson have done the same thing. I think it's a bug in XP but have never found any confirmation of that.

Thanks, Pete!
:)

Personally, I run a AMD XP 3000+ with 333FSB, 1GB DDR RAM, 120GB & 80GB 7200RPM Seagates, 8x AGP card with 64MB, DVD writer and XP Pro. I have all the eye-candy turned off, and it runs like a rocket. Even though a machine with this kind of RAM and CPU could easily deal with the eye-candy, I prefer the old win-98 look, as it is easier to follow from a 98 veteran like me, and also have taskbar and start menu setup like old 98. No matter what speed of machine, you turn the eye-candy off, and it runs faster still. What I mean by that, is that windows display instantly, with no delays, and this is important, if you're trying to be productive(I edit video, and make DVD's of people home videos)

I hear what you're saying about CPU speed and RAM vs XP, but I just find, that it works much better, with a faster nexus of hardware to start with.
It is generally accepted, I think, that were MS products/OS are concerned, speed is almost always better.

I agree, that you no doubt can run XP on less then 1.2GHz Duron, but I just set myself these minimum hardware standards, to make all machines I assemble/upgrade, considerably quicker then the last machine the client had.
Speed(or the appearence of speed!), is all important to clients. If the machine seems to display things faster, then the machine is better.

If you have 98 on a 1.2GHz Duron, and upgrade to XP Home or Pro, it may run it, but will generally work SLOWER then 98 did on the same hardware.

This is what annoys people - "Well, it was faster then this when 98 was on it!"

I hope you can understand what I'm trying to say here!
:D


MM.

Oh, also: About the USB thing - that's interesting about XP forgetting things. Seems like this is not that crazy afterall - sounds like you have had the same sort of trouble yourself. I wonder how many others who are reading this message right now(yes, YOU!), have had similar issues with USB equipment on XP???

MM.

If you have 98 on a 1.2GHz Duron, and upgrade to XP Home or Pro, it may run it, but will generally work SLOWER then 98 did on the same hardware.

I know, I had two almost identical machines side by side a while back, (different hard drives) win98 would run circles around XP. Both were 1.2GHz, 256MB RAM. That was before RAM prices dropped enough people could justify 512 and more...Stripped XP down to Win98 graphics, Win98 still outran it. No BIOS tweaks, No OS tweaks, straight out of the box, the only changes were the graphics in XP.

I usually don't use wallpaper and backgrounds for the same reason. Linux with 4 desktops can demonstrate why quite well. Switch to a plain desktop and it's instant. Switch to one with a big picture to draw, it sits there for a second or two trying to display that large picture, then switches to your desktop.

When I rebuilt my office machine, I bought a copy of the XP Home OEM CD.
(Here in NZ, you can buy an OEM copy of XP which is significantly cheaper then the retail version, if you buy a motherboard of some description at the same time - how about in USA? can you do that over there? I would say so - MS regulations are pretty global...)

Since installing it, I have had nowhere NEAR the problems I had with 98 - XP runs all day, and I don't think I've had a crash yet, that I can think of - been running on this machine for about 6 months.


MM.