PC Pals Forum

Technical Help & Discussion => Self Building, Upgrading & General Hardware Help => Topic started by: Lona on November 05, 2005, 20:11

Title: HP 815C printer
Post by: Lona on November 05, 2005, 20:11

My daughter who is trying to set up her printer  HP 815C to work on XP is having problems.

She went on to HP site and printed off the instructions for installing printer to work on XP.

Printer prints but all documents come out as gobbilty gook.

Any advice would be appreciated

Title: HP 815C printer
Post by: Simon on November 05, 2005, 20:24

I'll ask the obvious first, has she installed the correct drivers from the installation disc?

Title: HP 815C printer
Post by: Lona on November 05, 2005, 22:44

This is her old printer when she was on win98.

She went to HP software driver site and it said to use driver from her XP installation disc.

She followed the instructions given but printer still prints rubbish.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lang=en&lc=en&cc=us&docname=bpd09005

Title: HP 815C printer
Post by: Simon on November 06, 2005, 00:05

Maybe the drivers on the XP disc are not SP2 compatible?  Just guessing, really, but she could try using the drivers from HP:-

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareCategory?product=59863&lc=en&cc=uk&dlc=en&submit.y=6&submit.x=4&lang=en&cc=uk

Title: HP 815C printer
Post by: GillE on November 06, 2005, 00:08

Hi Lona

When it comes to talking about drivers, I quickly find myself out of my depth.  Nevertheless, I have a HP815C myself that's been giving me faithful service for years.  I connected it to my computer when the computer was new, running the original version of XP.  Of course, the OS has since been upgraded through Service Packs 1 & 2, but it's still chugging along.

I've checked the original driver disk that came with the printer and the software doesn't appear to be very large, about 100k.  The files are named COMPINFO.TXT, HPDJ815C.INF, HPF21.HP, HPFPNP.DLL, HPFPNP.INI, HPRDY.HP, HPSETUP.INI, SETUP.EXE and VERINFO.TXT.  I don't know which file is the driver, but I'd be happy to email all or any of them to you if it might help.

Gill

Title: HP 815C printer
Post by: Sandra on November 06, 2005, 01:01

Its usually the .inf that seems to be the main problem when installing drivers.
For some reason its hard for the OS to "see" where it is and often you need to specify exactly where it is before it will install  :(

Title: HP 815C printer
Post by: Lona on November 06, 2005, 17:50

Quote from: "GillD"

Hi Lona

When it comes to talking about drivers, I quickly find myself out of my depth.  Nevertheless, I have a HP815C myself that's been giving me faithful service for years.  I connected it to my computer when the computer was new, running the original version of XP.  Of course, the OS has since been upgraded through Service Packs 1 & 2, but it's still chugging along.

I've checked the original driver disk that came with the printer and the software doesn't appear to be very large, about 100k.  The files are named COMPINFO.TXT, HPDJ815C.INF, HPF21.HP, HPFPNP.DLL, HPFPNP.INI, HPRDY.HP, HPSETUP.INI, SETUP.EXE and VERINFO.TXT.  I don't know which file is the driver, but I'd be happy to email all or any of them to you if it might help.

Gill

Thanks Gill for the offer.  My daughter has the original installation discs which came with printer but she thought they would be useless with XP.

Are you saying she can install using those discs?

Title: HP 815C printer
Post by: GillE on November 06, 2005, 18:17

Hi Lona

She should be able to install with those disks, yes.  I did.

Gill

Title: HP 815C printer
Post by: Simon on November 06, 2005, 20:47

Or she can get the drivers for XP from where I posted above.

Title: HP 815C printer
Post by: Lona on November 07, 2005, 15:49

Quote from: "Simon"

Or she can get the drivers for XP from where I posted above.

If you check my previous post Simon, you will see I posted the exact same link.  That's the instructions she followed and the damn thing still won't work properly. :(

Title: HP 815C printer
Post by: Simon on November 07, 2005, 17:13

Quote from: "Simon"

Or she can get the drivers for XP from where I posted above.

Quote from: "Lona"

If you check my previous post Simon, you will see I posted the exact same link.

Not quite, Lona.  Your link was for the instructions, mine was to the actual drivers.  :)

Title: HP 815C printer
Post by: Lona on November 11, 2005, 21:31

Quote from: "Simon"

Quote from: "Simon"

Or she can get the drivers for XP from where I posted above.

Quote from: "Lona"

If you check my previous post Simon, you will see I posted the exact same link.

Not quite, Lona.  Your link was for the instructions, mine was to the actual drivers.  :)

If you check your link Simon, it takes you to my link, where it tells you to use the xp drivers.  HP don't seem to have a list of drivers for that particular model for xp that is.

Anyway to give an update, I tried all evening to install using her parallel cable with no success.  I borrowed my usb cable from my printer and it found the printer instantly without doing anything further.


I guess she will just have to go out and buy a usb cable as the printer can support that connection as well as parallel port connection.

Title: HP 815C printer
Post by: sam on November 12, 2005, 00:44

umm thats odd....maybe xp is having some weird parrallel port issue

Title: HP 815C printer
Post by: Lona on November 12, 2005, 01:21

Quote from: "sam"

umm thats odd....maybe xp is having some weird parrallel port issue

I'm wondering Sam, if it's because it's a laptop
 :?

Title: HP 815C printer
Post by: sam on November 12, 2005, 01:52

its possible...would be interesting to find out the motherboard. I'm getting to know quite a bit about laptops parallel ports though two reasons a) a lab I teach and b) for some astrophotography work I'm doing.... would be interesting...though at least it works!!