majbach
05-27-2003, 12:27 PM
Hi there. Have a very strange problem and I’m not getting anywhere with it. Friend of mine has XP Pro and he is having problems when trying to scan. He is so convinced it was his HP scanner, he bought another but experienced the same problems. When he activated HP Director (that’s the scanner program), the screen goes blank briefly and when it comes back on, the colors are somewhat screwed up. It then states it can’t find the scanner. As soon as he closes the HP Director program box, the screen blanks again briefly and goes back to 16 or 32-bit color and everything seems normal. I determined that what was really happening was that it was dropping to 8-bit color mode but I don’t know why I can’t see the scanner. He has 1.x Gig Celeron, EDS (?) Motherboard, two printers (one HP, one Lexmark) - both parallel (with an extra card), a digital camera scanner that is USB and the HP scanner is also USB.
I tried the usual of uninstalling all software related to external hardware and also shut down almost everything in the startup, even physically removed external devices as well as in the device manager and updated drivers. Even when all was removed and I reinstalled the scanner, the problem persisted. The only thing strange that I noticed was even though there were no devices listed in the control panel in the scanner section, when I added the scanner, it always named it properly but called it #2, as if there was another identical scanner already there but not shown. By the way, the scanner works fine if you use the buttons on it or scan with say Adobe photo. It is also listed in the device manager and states it is functioning normally.
I did an extensive search on the net and did happen to find one other person with the same problem, ironically in the HP scanner discussion forums. He was using a different scanner though but still fairly new. He did no post a solution.
http://bizforums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0xa4a0afe90f1cd71190050090279cd0f9,00.html
I do not believe it is HP related
Another note. My friend stated that his scanner was working fine for several months before this began and he cannot remember any changes to the system except he vaguely remembers installing SP1 somewhere around the time this all occurred.
I do not believe it is necessarily HP related for this reason. Just before I was about to give up, he asked me to look at his burner, as it too was not working. When I went to copy something, the exact same thing happened! (it is an LG burner, not HP). The screen briefly blanked and color res. Changed then it stated it could not find the device. When the window was closed, the screen blanked and returned to normal color.
Both printers work fine as does the other device in the USB.
What the heck could this be?
Thanks a heap in advance,
MajBach
I tried the usual of uninstalling all software related to external hardware and also shut down almost everything in the startup, even physically removed external devices as well as in the device manager and updated drivers. Even when all was removed and I reinstalled the scanner, the problem persisted. The only thing strange that I noticed was even though there were no devices listed in the control panel in the scanner section, when I added the scanner, it always named it properly but called it #2, as if there was another identical scanner already there but not shown. By the way, the scanner works fine if you use the buttons on it or scan with say Adobe photo. It is also listed in the device manager and states it is functioning normally.
I did an extensive search on the net and did happen to find one other person with the same problem, ironically in the HP scanner discussion forums. He was using a different scanner though but still fairly new. He did no post a solution.
http://bizforums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0xa4a0afe90f1cd71190050090279cd0f9,00.html
I do not believe it is HP related
Another note. My friend stated that his scanner was working fine for several months before this began and he cannot remember any changes to the system except he vaguely remembers installing SP1 somewhere around the time this all occurred.
I do not believe it is necessarily HP related for this reason. Just before I was about to give up, he asked me to look at his burner, as it too was not working. When I went to copy something, the exact same thing happened! (it is an LG burner, not HP). The screen briefly blanked and color res. Changed then it stated it could not find the device. When the window was closed, the screen blanked and returned to normal color.
Both printers work fine as does the other device in the USB.
What the heck could this be?
Thanks a heap in advance,
MajBach