Member Avatar for drybij

I'm working a person's eMachine t6524. The printer is a Lexmark x3470 all in one. I believe that the OS is WinXPsp2. When I try to print from either Word or Notepad the I get a "Communication Failure."

The scanner communicates with the computer over the same USB port, I can scan a picture. I've tried all the ports, same results.

The printer will print when connected to my laptop.

I've tried uninstalling and deleting the driver, then re-installing the driver version that's known to work on the laptop.

On the computer that can't print from anything, when printing from either notepad or Word, the user previously had an error prompting him to enter the path to a Microsoft .cab file that goes with Office. (not having the cab file, we aborted) He has Office 2003 trial, which he thought was expired a long time ago. I fixed the .cab file prompt by editing the registry and setting ..../Microsoft/Office/11/CDCache to 0 (was 2)

The MS popup went away and now the communication error is there. Any ideas?

Thanks!!!

  • 3 Contributors
  • 3 Replies
  • 88 Views
  • 1 Day Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by caperjack
Member Avatar for c-tech

don't know much abt printers. but can i ask this, are you using the same USB cable while scanning and printing from the other computer/laptop? it might be the cable.

Member Avatar for drybij

Yeah - same cable, the only difference (besides switching computers) is that the cable was coiled and bound with the twist-tie when it wasn't working. Now it's unbound and it's working. That's a long shot though, especially considering that scanning was working in both situations. I will try swapping cables though.

I'm tending to lean towards a software problem on the first pc. Though I'm at a loss to identify it. I've completely removed and re-installed the driver and even a test page won't print.

Thanks for the reply.

Member Avatar for caperjack

go start ,printers and fax[or control panel printers and faxes ] ,and make sure there is only one lexmark printer icon its set as the default .ior go

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.