Epson Stylus Printers doesn't print everything 1

[kandie4380]

Hi Everyone,
I have a Epson Stylus 440 printer, Windows Me. The problem is the printer will only print a couple of lines (maybe).
I updated the driver and cleaned it but the samething keeps happening. Can anyone offer a mother of three some advise? I would greatly appreciate it. Thank You very much.

kandie4380@yahoo.com

 

[noblehill]

One question: is this a problem with all applications? I had a similar problem with my Epson Stylus 9500, but it only occured when I printed from Corel Photo Paint, printing from other programs worked just fine.

 

[attila64ro]

You should try to boot DOS or WIN9x command prompt from a floppy (maybe one of your friends could make you a win95 boot floppy).You should copy a text file on the floppy too (about 10-20KB) If you can do this, boot DOS/command prompt, type "Ctrl+P", then type something in the command prompt, followed by "Enter" This thing makes that all what you type at command prompt will be automatically passed to the printer (considered generic, and needs no driver) until you press "Ctrl+P" again.
This way you can realize, if LPT1: (PRN is OK. If nothing prints, you can change printer cable to see if that is the problem. If nothing prints either, then you have parallel port problem. If prints OK from command prompt, then parallel port is OK.
Then try something like "type mytextfile.txt >lpt1:" to see if handshaking between PC and printer works OK. If you loose characters, or have partial file print, then you have a promblem on LPT1 port, printer cable, or on printer. (The way it should work is that when the printer's buffer is full, it sends a "wait" to the PC, until buffer contents is printed and buffer is emptied, then sends a "ready", and PC continues sending data - this is called handshaking). If everything prints OK,the next step is to check BIOS settings, where try to find something like: pripherals-> parallel port settings. Maybe you have "Standard (Centronix)" setting in BIOS, and in Windows you have "bidirectional". If so, your BIOS should be st to bidirectional, ECP or EPP.
If everything checked is OK, then you may have a Windows driver problem. There is always an explanation!
But maybe we don't know it.
The truth is out there!

 

[kandie4380]

Thanks Noblehill,
The problem occurs in all programs, even when I try to print from the internet. I unistalled the printer program and reinstalled it and the samething still happens.

 

[kandie4380]

HI Again,
I did alittle of everything you said and now thanks to you MY PRINTER IS PRINTING....Thank you very much. Keep up the good work.