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General discussion

Funky port messages and HP Laserjet 3150 stopped working

Sep 21, 2006 5:49AM PDT

Yesterday my HP Laserjet 3150 was working fine. Today there is a red "x" through the Laserjet tray icon and when I try to print it says "printer not connected or plugged in". On the control panel printer screen it says the printer is ready. The panel on the printer itself says it's ready. ?? The printer is attached to an eMachine that's a couple of years old.

Coincidentally--or not--Windows Media Player 10 and Phillips GoGear software were installed on the computer yesterday, and Windows did an auto software update. I've done system restore back to when the Laserjet last worked, no improvement so I undid the restore. I've uninstalled, rebooted, & reinstalled the Laserjet software, no results. Unplugged & replugged cables... I'm at a loss what to do next.

Other odd port messages: suddenly Activesync is looking for a mobile device on a serial/infrared port, where there has never been a mobile device. It pops this screen up every time we reboot, starting yesterday. I also have a Lexmark printer attached thru a router, and now the computer says it can't communicate with it, either. But then I haven't used the Lexmark for several months, so who knows if that's new as well?

Oh, and Zonealarm has reported and deleted 2 trojans in the last 2 days, which has never happened on this system before.

Don't know if the problem is the Laserjet or the computer, and I don't have another computer to hook the Laserjet up to. I'm ready to reformat and start over just to see if it helps. We really need our printer! But less drastic suggestions would be really, really appreciated.

Discussion is locked

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A real problem with trojans is ...
Sep 21, 2006 6:40AM PDT

That we can never be sure what damage they did. This is a frightful lesson about them.

If no clues are found then we backup our files one more time and start over.

Bob

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Funky port messages and HP Laserjet 3150 stopped working
Sep 21, 2006 7:12AM PDT

Do this, I also encountered the same problem, first I uninstalled everything I installed a day prior but in Safe mode, then I rebooted and then I restored to 1 week prior and guess what, voila, it worked. Try it and let me know

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Computer DOA
Sep 22, 2006 2:07PM PDT

Well, never got a chance to try any of the advice. The computer went DOA shortly after I posted the message. I have no idea what happened, but it started only partially loading screens, shut down, and thereafter refused to power on. Anyone know whether a trojan could do this, or if something just burned out?

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Trojans rarely cause a power up issue. In fact...
Sep 22, 2006 5:38PM PDT

Outside the chernobyl virus I've yet to see that.

Pretty rare (once in 10+ years) so it's time to troubleshoot the hardware.

Bob