I dug my old HP Laserjet IIP Plus printer out of the basement, hooked it up to the printer port on my nifty SMC router, running from my Win98 system. Note that everything I describe below happens when the printer is directly connected to the computer also.
The thing prints fine, and I’ve got enough toner to last me until the Great Thaw of 2007. But every time I fire up the computer, I get an error message “53 ERROR” on the printer. The book says that this is a memory parity error of some kind, but I think the book lies.
If I disconnect the printer cable, and then turn on the printer, everything is fine. I then hook up the cable and I’m off to the races. If I turn on the printer first (while the computer is off), then everything is fine.
I only get this problem when I turn on the printer after I turn on the computer. I vaguely remember that I had this problem a few years ago, which is why I retired the Laserjet in he first place.
Obviously, having such an aged configuration I can’t get help through the regular channels, so I’m placing my trust in the Teeming Millions.
Anyone got a fix? Anyone got an idea? Is there some registry setting I can tweak? All help appreciated.
Scruff
Does it do this when connected directly to the PC?
Does it have a memory card and have you tried re-seating it?
Some older HP printers get memory cycling errors if hooked up to a win98 config and an ECP port defintion used in the PC BIOS but as the unit you are using is networked and I don’t see how that can be the problem. The fix was to change the BIOS setup parameters to a non-ECP standard bi-directional port defintion. http://www.hp.com/cposupport/printers/support_doc/bpl04127.html
The rule for old equipment used to always be that you turn on all the peripherals first, then you turned on the computer. Things that can be connected and disconnected from the computer while it is running are called “hot swappable.” If your printer malfunctions when you hot swap it, then it’s operator error, not a problem with the printer. It wasn’t designed to do what you are doing to it. Your lucky all it does is give you a weird error. Some equipment can be damaged by doing what you are doing.
You fix it by redesigning the printer. Tweaking the software ain’t gonna help.
The only thing hot swappable on older systems is the mouse, and that’s only if it’s RS-232, not PS/2. And that’s only because the RS-232 spec mandates a lot more robustness than what is in the rest of the computer’s ports.