Computer Dies while printing!! 2

[TonyH687]

HP PAvillion 8543C, max ram (256) Win98SE running Direcway satellite internet software. USB printer (LexZ55). While printing documents (10=60pages) occassionaly computer just dies. Like pulling the power cable, it just shutsdown. Only recent changes were addition of the sat internet progs(eats ram!) and doubling RAM. Never happened before those 2 changes so I suspect one or the other. Noticed other post saying "heat?" but comp will do this on start of printing, after 1-3pages, other times will print 50pages before shutdown. Time to upgrade comp??? Ideas appreciated. (shutting down the direcwayprog makes no diff-still shuts down sometimes) THANKS TonyH

 

[xjlkx]

Tony -

Out of curiosity, what is your power supply, and what hardware are you running?

 

[TonyH687]

Hey its junk lol mostly. 466celeron, up till now its suited what I did with it though. Not running anything special other than USB printer.(inkjet) SOundblaster PCI512 soundcard, ATI expert128 video card, generic network card.
I think that printing these large document packages might be just overloading the thing. I believe it first stores whatever u print in memory, then starts printing it.At times though, it seems to be too much for it to handle. I print a lot of legal size docs using Acrobat reader (PDF files) My system only runs at 68-71% when i check that performance tab in My Computer-even with nothing running except the essentials and the direcway program for the net service. This morning though comp shut down with that prog off too. Im not sure what power supply came with Pavillion 8543c but I havent changed anything about that. Tony

 

[xjlkx]

Hmm....you mentioned "doubling RAM".....can you elaborate on that?

 

[TonyH687]

yep only had 128K ram in it when I got the Direcway Satellite net service, which knocked performance down to something like 59%, so I pulled the 64k sticks out and replaced with 128k sticks (its only got 2 memory slots)This is PC100 sdram. First I only got one stick, going up to 192k but that didnt help the shutdown prob, sO i bought another piece of 128memory and maxed it out to 256k. Progs run better, but its still showing only about 60%performance with minimums running (cd prog,display driver,printtray and direcway progs). It started this shutdown thing before I ever replaced any RAM though, that was the biggest reason I put in more RAM.Thought that might be the reason. It gives no LOW MEMORY warning, no clues, nothing, it just shuts off right in the middle of a page its printing. And not when Im running any other progs or doing anything else with comp.
Its maybe just overheating, since some of these doc files are 70-80 pages long. (excpt sometimes it does it on page 2 or 3 ) ??
Tony

 

[mrkev]

The percent of resources you are talking about probably won't be helped by more ram in Win98. You need to eliminate all the extra things that load when you boot. In Win98 go to START, RUN, and type msconfig. Go to the startup tab and uncheck anything that is not essential to run. (These items can be rechecked later if needed.) When you reboot you should have a noticeable increase in resources. Good Luck.

 

[jonhiker]

The docs you are printing are loaded into memory(buffer) first before printing. After doing what mrkev suggested, check to see how much space is left on the hard drive. This will affect things, especially printing large files.

 

[mudskipper]

TonyH687 - You stated that RAM was just changed...you might want to slap the old RAM back in to see if the new RAM is the culprit. Mudskipper
___________________________________________________________________________________

Groucho said it best- "A four year-old child could understand this! Quick! Run out and find me a four year-old child: I can't make heads nor tails out of this!"

 

[TonyH687]

THanks guys, i think i will swap out that last 128KB stick of ram and see if it matters, but I believe it was doing that before I ever changed any RAM. It was operating with 128K before I got this new satellite net service, but when I noticed it was running at 59% at rest I decided i better giveit some more ram. I got just about everything cut off already that was on auto-startup, cept for the graphics card prog, the cd writer prog and the printtray thing for the printer. I'll post back shortly on this....tony

 

[TonyH687]

ok got it up to 73% now thats about the best its been i think. This might be a side-issue-but can display adapter have any relations to this---i just noticed under the hardware manager, i was showing 2 display adapters. one said Generic PCI graphics adapter and had a QuestionMark symbol overit. the other showed my ATI card. I disabled that generic one, removed from hardware profile and rebooted. Windows98 tried to put it back in but i cancelled it. And the little "ATI" symbol that used to bein the taskbar is now gone. Im beginning to wonder if this is worth the effort to save this one. ? Tony

 

[TonyH687]

Further on this one: have over 6gb free space on the hard drive. Just pulled out one of the 128K sticks of ram (that may be suspect-"KINGSTON-Ram purchased at OfficeMax) and put back in a 64 I got from Crucial. Printed 10pages for a test-no problemo. If I can keep this thread open I will post back after a few days after learning if this solved the prob. Thanks to everyone who advised....TonyH 1024pm

 

[TonyH687]

Ok Im convinced the RAM was bad. Printed 106pages this afternoon, nothing happened. SO far, So good. Beware where you get your RAM!! Thanks everyone for assisting. TonyH

 

[Win98User]

Hi Tony,

Have you seen this HP link about your machine? I post it just incase you haven't.

http://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/document.jhtml?reg=&cc=&prodId=hppavilion18899&lc=en&docName=bph05592

Regards.

 

[TonyH687]

Thks Win98User, I have read that before on the HP site...appreciate that reminder. TonyH