Lexmark E320 has stopped communicating back from the printer to the computer via parallel port. When I first received it, it would send its information back, but it has stopped doing that. Now if you go to Properties and select Device, what used to happen is that it would tell you right away what options were installed (i.e. none), but now it hangs for some time and doesn't get anything back. Also when trying to install the drivers, it said it couldn't install the language monitor.
I suspected the cable, which was a cheap-o one. so I replaced it with a better cable that states IEEE-1284 compliant. Also I've tried using it both hooked straight to the computer (runs Win98SE), and to a Lexmark Marknet Pro print server; both ways it didn't work, which implies that it's the printer itself at fault. (unless both cables are bad, which I doubt, or else the parallel ports on both the computer and the print server are bad, which I likewise doubt.) I've also (per Microsoft's knowledge base article) reinstalled the drivers, reinstalled the port, tried to change the port to standard parallel rather than ECP, none of this helped.
Parallel port settings are as follows;
PCL Smartswitch = On,
PS Smartswitch = On,
NPA Mode = Auto,
Parallel Buffer = Auto
Advanced Status = On
Protocol = Fastbytes
Honor Init = Off
Parallel Mode 2 = On
Mac Binary PS = Auto
Thing is, I haven't changed any of these settings, yet it worked for a couple days, then now it stopped. You can still print to the damned thing if it's hooked directly to the printer, although if you're going through the print-server it's perpetually offline, (And if anyone knows what's up with that, I'd really like to know.) but the software that came with it, which is dependent on bidirectional communication, doesn't work.
On top of all this, the Add TCP/IP port in windows is missing. I've been googling this for the past several hours, and it seems to be a common problem in Win2K/XP/Vista, which doesn't help me. Regarding Win98, there's exactly one page where someone says "Oh, I found a really great solution to this, and it's at page [whatever]", which isn't there any more (and archive.org doesn't have it either). Why he couldn't just cut & paste it for the benefit of those who came later, I dunno.
Anybody know what is going on?
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