Network Printing Problems

[Sontec]

Our company has recently bought a consignment of new machines from Evesham. On 4 of the machines, 2 out of 3 times when you send a file to the network printer (a Ricoh Aficio 450), the screens go black, sometimes with graphical corruptions, and the computer is totally locked up forcing a hard reset.

All the other machines have identical printer drivers and printer setups, but seem to print fine.

The printer is running off a D-Link DP300 print server on a Novell Netware network. The machines are Athlon XP 1.8, 256 RAM, Micronet SP2082 NICs with Leadtek TNT2 graphics on a Microstar MS6340 mobo. All machines run Win98SE.

After calling Evesham tech support, they suggested checking the parallel port mode in the BIOS was set to ECP/EPP (it was). They then suggested removing and reinstalling Dial Up Networking, and failing that, reinstalling Windows. None of the suggestions worked. Has anyone else got any ideas before we send the machines back?

Thanks,

Al.

 

[dinosnake]

Well, here goes nothing...

The printers are network, but Evesham said to check the parallel port settings. Why??

Let us start with the obvious places - can you compare the IRQ map of the working computers and the non-working ones for differences. Are the NIC's in the same slots in all computers? Then check and compare BIOS settings, with special emphasis in PCI and Advanced Chipset Settings, across the working and non-working units. I have found that, although PnP NIC's will set themselves up on almost any IRQ, they only seem stable on IRQ 9, 10 or 11.

Then check the driver version numbers on the video card and NIC drivers. A Micronet SP2082 is a 10Mbps PCI PNP card (why no 100BaseT??); they have 2 versions, a SP2082 and a SP2082A. Make sure you are using the correct drivers for the correct card. DO NOT ASSUME. Double check this (learned that, and trying to teach others that, about Linksys cards. Same card 'number' has 5 different chipset versions, each with its own driver). I am not able to find a manual to download in Micronet's site for the card - does it have a configuration utility? If it does run it and check the settings.

If you need to reinstall Windows I would recommend yanking the NIC's completely during the install. After the reinstall is complete then insert the NIC, install the drivers and configure the network - do not reboot after Windows has finished its detection and install of the hardware. Configure the network stack first, then reboot.

Hope you don't mind a starting point - let's go from here. Your mileage may vary...