Getting an ancient Panasonic KX-P1150 dot matrix printer to work in XP

Factual Questions
1

Ugh. I’ve been messing with this printer for a good three hours now and I’m at my wit’s end.

My coworker was having trouble getting anything intelligible to print. When you pressed the “Online” button on the printer, it just prints page after page of gibberish, whether you’ve requested anything to print or not.

After uninstalling/reinstalling and changing a few settings to no effect, I called Panasonic. The phone number in the manual directed me to a second phone number, which, in turn, directed me to a third, where I waited 20 minutes on long-distance hold. When I finally got to talk to someone, she explained that the Win2K and XP drivers for this model don’t actually work, and that I should install drivers for the Epson FX-850 instead. I did that and it still printed gibberish. She told me to call the warranty hotline and see about getting it repaired. From the serial number, they could find out if it was still under warranty.

Of course, when I actually called the warranty number, it turned out that not only was she mistaken about the serial number, but that she should have charged me $18 for giving me any advice about the printer at all! Hell, she didn’t even ask for my name, let alone a credit card number. Oh well. Guess I got a freebie.

Anyway, I tried hooking the printer up to a Windows 2000 machine. I installed the Epson FX-850 drivers and printed a test page. Perfect. Worked great. Elated, I took the printer back to my coworker and set it up again exactly the same way I did in '2000. Result? Why, the same old gibberish, of course.

Even stranger is the fact that this printer used to work fine on the same XP machine that I’m now having trouble with. Unfortunately there were a lot of other problems with the XP computer that required a reinstall (you know the type of coworker; she installs every damn little piece of crap software/spyware she can find and ends up hosing her Windows install). After the reinstall was when the gibberish characters started.

I’d really like to just chuck this printer out the window, but this is only a one-story building, so it wouldn’t be very satisfying. Oh, and I’d probably get fired, too, I guess.

Anyone have any suggestions?

2

Panasonic’s site and Microsoft both claim the KX-P1150 driver for XP is on the Windows XP install CD. Microsoft goes farther and says their drivers are digitally signed and will work and that Panasonic’s may not work.

Not sure if this is the case for you, but I just saw in print recently that XP doesn’t handle parallel devices very well, and that the best way to use legacy printers is via a USB to parallel converter. The core problem is XP doesn’t support the parallel port interrupts, which can cause system slowdowns and freezes.

3

Some additional info on parallel devices: I had the same problem with my HP scanner when XP first came out. The scanner was purchased in 1998 and one would think it would work on XP, but such was not the case. I ended up buying a new one.

4

The drivers from the XP CD are the ones the tech said wouldn’t work (and didn’t). She also said there were drivers on the Windows 2000 CD that wouldn’t work either. I couldn’t find any drivers on Panasonic’s site besides the Win 3.1 drivers.

The strange thing is, like I said, it worked perfectly on the same XP machine before the reinstall. Unfortunately, I have no idea what drivers it was using then, since I wasn’t the one who set it up originally.

5

I suppose you’re finding you might as well get a new printer for all the trouble it’s causing… Two possible solutions:

  1. Try the Generic Text driver. I have a wide-carriage Epson LQ-2550 that I use occasionally, and IIRC that’s what I’m using. (Not on XP though).

  2. Install the printer on the Win2k (or other non-XP) machine, share the printer over your network, and load it on the XP machine. Win2k machine handles all the interrupts and driver details, everything works.

6

Well, we’d like to get this one working, since she needs an impact printer for certain things. She does have an inkjet in her office and we have a few shared laser printers she could print to.

Looking online, I see that this dox-matrix printer (a model from 1993) is still being sold new in some stores and costs $160.

Thanks for the advice, though. I’ll try #1 when I go into work tomorrow. #2 is a last resort, since the printer really needs to be in her office. A couple of other users have impact printers that she can print to while hers is down.

7

Try different settings for the parallel port options in the BIOS.

Your options are normally

1: Bi-directional
2: ECP (what modern systems are normally set to)
3 :EPP (or ECP+EPP)

Try the older bi-directional setting and see if that helps things.

Also, if the unit has anything that shares the parallel port like a ZIP drive or a parallel port scanner these could also be problematic even if they are not currently attached as their applets will often monitor the parallel port and this can cause problems.

8

It’s worth a shot, but I’m not too optimistic, as I didn’t change any BIOS settings (well, besides the boot order, of course) when I reinstalled XP, and the printer worked with it before that. Thanks, though. I’ll definitely check it out just in case.

Nope. Her computer is a laptop hooked up to a docking station. The only peripheral of note is an inkjet connected via USB.

9

Try un-installing the inkjet and then using the Panasonic. Some inkjets will install both USB and parallel port drivers regardless of whether you choose one or the other, and the printer applets can often be monitoring the parallel port even if only the USB port is being used. This may be interfering with the ability of the Panasonic to use the port.

10

Interesting. That’s certainly a possibility that I’ll have to check out, especially considering that her inkjet is really cheap and fairly problematic. Thanks, astro.

11

Sounds like your user fits this description, as well.

(Sorry, I know this is GQ, but I just couldn’t resist.)

12

Tell me about it. :slight_smile: Out of about 40 users, the lion’s share of troubles I deal with are those of two people. By some earthshattering coincidence, these are the same two people who love crappy browser plug-ins and email attachments. Whoda thunk it?

13

Yes! I got the damn thing working. It was a conflict, though not exactly what astro suggested. Still, that suggestion was what put me on the right track. Thanks.

Turns out she had incorrectly installed her crappy USB Lexmark. It was a Z45 and she had somehow managed to convince the computer that it was a Z42 on LPT1. She also has the correct Z45 drivers installed, but is unable to delete the Z42 entry. It just shows the status as “deleting,” but never goes away. Stupid XP. After telling the computer to look for the phantom Z42 on LPT2 instead of 1, everything seems to work fine with the default XP drivers for the Panasonic.

I can’t believe I overlooked this yesterday. I just assumed the Z42 was a shared printer in someone else’s office without checking the properties for it. :smack:

14

If you try printing from the DOS prompt it should work …