Worm or currupted file?

[BobNY]

I was recently asked to help a friend get his printer running again. He has a desktop generic PC running XP Home. The printer is a Lexmark low end color printer.

He informed me that he thought that he had a virus that occurred around the time that the printer ceased functioning. He attempted to use Norton Anti-virus with no help. He finally ran some of the repair patches from Microsoft and this apparently allowed him to regain control of his e-mail. The printer however did not recover following the installation of the patches.

I did the typical. Both the power light and the 'on-line' light were blinking on the printer. I attempted to put the printer back on line using the external buttons. But, that was not helpful. Print commands to the printer gave the error message "communication error". I went into the control panel and found that the printer was offline. I placed the printer back on-line, checked to see if the port was correct, checked cabling, etc. I tried to print from the DOS prompt and there was no response, the cursor just froze. Also, tried to print from Notepad with no response. I finally disconnected the printer completely from the computer and attempted to remove and reinstall the printer driver. Curiously, the error message I received indicated that the printer was in service and there was a print job in the cue?! Any attempt to delete the driver was futile. Is this a worm protecting itself or am I missing something?

Thanks in advance for your response,
Bob, the incompetent computer detective!

 

[franklin97355]

There are several sites that will let you do a virus check online you might want to start there. Try removing the printer and it's drivers in safe mode. Check to see if the printer will print it's internal self test page and make sure you have an IEEE 1284 printer cable.Turn on ECP in the bios. Let us know how this goes.

 

[gpalmer711]

bobNY,
I find the best antivirus site to do online checks is

http://housecall.antivirus.com

this has often found viruses that Norton and the like will not.

After following franklin97355's advice if you still cannot get the device working you could try uninstalling the LPT1 port from the device manager and any IEEE 1284.4 devices that are in there. Do that in safe mode and it will then force windows to reinstall the Printer port and there for the printer as well. Make sure you have the XP CD to hand though as it may be asked for.

Greg Palmer

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Any feed back is appreciated.

 

[3142]

Check also if you have activated printer and fax services without reason!
I´d believe that after cleanig the queque from prints and maybe re-installing it`ll works.

 

[BobNY]

franklin93755, gpalmer711, and 3142
Thanks for all the good advice. I'll have an opportunity to try these suggestions during the next week. I'll let you know the outcome. Hopefully, my buddy will be printing again.
Thanks,
BobNY

 

[bcastner]

Reinstall the Lexmark printer drivers, after completely removing the existing printer definition from Printers and Faxes.

Many lexmark printers add a service process that may have been thought to be a virus, and this was removed.

While you are at it, head to the Lexmark site and get the most recent driver version they have. The printers have been problematic under XP.

 

[zestril5]

I have found that uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers for Lexmark printers usually does not work unless you download the "Clean Uninstall" software to remove the drivers from Lexmark's website.
Look under driversat the Lexmark web site...enter your printer model and choose the uninstall utility. then get the driver.
Also when installing the drivers for most USB connected lexmark printers you should not have the USB connected unless instructed to do so or after the software is installed.