USB printer freezes Win98 on reboot
I'm actually 100% stuck on this one.

Here's the low-down, a few months back my ECS K7S5A started dying.
So by deleting the drivers, and the registry's hardware key, I could rebuild Win98 by swapping M-boards.
No problem, slowly I added the hardware back and all was AOK.

The last thing I added was the Printer, the software installs fine...
But windows freezes at the loading Win98 screen.
I can't see the problem in the boot.log

Printer works fine on other PC's.
USB still works fine with USB drive, etc...
USB Cable is OK, PC & printer has 100% pure power via APC UPS BackUps
PSU, RAM, CPU, etc... Tested all AOK (not hardware failure).

In the "Printer" window: (Acrobat 5.0) PDFWriter now says "User Intervention Required - Use Printer Offline"
But yet Acrobat Distiller seems to be fine... (I never knowingly use the PDFWriter anyways, do I need it?).

Fortunately Rebooting into safe mode and deleting the printer software & drivers fixes the freeze problem.
Downloaded latest drivers & updates, but the freeze or reboot still happens.

I'm not certain if it's a driver, Registry or USB problem.

Hardware specs:
Brother All-in-One Lazer DCP-7020

I must point out that this is at least the 3rd m-board that Win98 has been moved to without reinstalling from scratch. (I know it sounds crazy having the same OS for over 8 years without reinstalling it)
Currently: ASUS P4S5533-E & Intel P4 2.2Ghz, ATI Radeon 9000 AGP4x 128MB, SB Live! 5.1
Past: ECS K7S5A & AMD T-Bird 1.333Ghz, Diamond Viper V770 AGP2x 32MB, SB Live! 5.1
Past: Epox Socket 7 ? & AMD K-? 600Mhz, S3 Virge PCI 4MB, AWE 32 PCI
At least 2 inkjet printers have been part of OS in the distant past: Epson CX5400, Canon BJ-300.

I'm no stranger to fixing what others consider too difficult to figure out with Win98. Especially after swapping M-boards and rebuilding drivers...
but this has really me stumped.

Hi HDD Mod'r, welcome to SAF

As a first thought, have you reloaded all the motherboard/chipset drivers ? Windows generic chipset drivers may not work as expected on all hardware.

Chris

Perhaps the boot process is trying to detect the printer before the USB driver is installed in Win98. What happens if the printer is turned off or the USB cable is unplugged during the boot process? Also, is there a USB Legacy setting in the BIOS that can be turned on so the MB detects the printer prior to boot?

Hi Ironbender & thanks.

The Asus IDE chipset drivers ran the system slow and I couldn't burn DVDs faster than 2x.
So in this case I do use the MS generic chipset (Primary & Secondary) IDE drivers.
Otherwise I never use Windows generic chipset drivers, I always download the latest.


I'm not quite following you.
If your asking if I had removed all the old ECS chipset drivers and installed all the new ASUS chipset drivers, then Yes.
Actually I removed all drivers and had win98 rebuild from scratch using non-Microsoft drivers (except IDE).
But if your asking if I have reinstalled them a second time for this rebuild, then No.

Hello jimholly
I didn't think of that,
I'll unplug the USB cable first, then look for the USB legacy setting (which I'm sure I would've turned off).
Then I'll see if Win98 will boot.

Let you know if a few hours.

I enabled the USB legacy setting.
So now:
If the Printer is plugged in then it still freezes.
If the USB cable is unplugged Windows will boot.

Well, it's not perfect but it will do.

I would still like to leave it plugged in 24/7.
And I did notice the BIOS setting USB 2.0 is off (because it's Win98).
On the otherhand I found that USB Man has devoted an entire page to this SIS 7001 chipset.
And it currently works fine with all other USB devices...
Maybe I'll just leave it all as is.

Well, thanks jimholly & Ironbender, I can print again!

Yes, sometimes we have to compromise with these computers, but as long as it works!

Ya, seeing as this is at least the 3rd, possibly the 4th mainboard
(Also: 3rd or 4th printer, 3rd video card, 3rd HDD, 3rd CPU, 3rd powersupply, 2nd sound card, 2nd case, 2nd speakers, 2nd burner, and I think the 5th CD player, not to mention mice, keyboard, etc.)
that I've rebuilt this version of Win98 on, without reinstalling, I agree.
I've had a pretty good run with this OS, thank goodness for Ghost 6 (DOS version).
I'll be sad on the day that I have to reinstall every game and every customized program though.

After some 8 years, I guess I'm sorta spoiled eh.
But I'd like to get another 2 years and call it an even decade though.


er.., knock on wood.


And my thanks again.