While I was done in
Shelby to setup and test their PC poll books, I was told of a problem with the
Ballot on Demand printer. It seems that
it is intermittent in its nature, but it does happen during every print cycle with
multiple print jobs. The printer seems
to not shut down its data read after control D is sent to it and seems to read some
arbitrary data string when it fails giving
a message of offending data string stack error. This error does show a few ASCII characters that it thinks are the
error. I called the 800
technical support phone number listed in the printer manual and worked with them
on this problem. We checked all printer
settings and also used the Microsoft WordPad program creating a text page and
reprinting it multiple times with the same effect and error, thus eliminating
our application as suspect. Their recommendation
was to replace the clone printer cable with a proper IEEE-1284 printer cable
made by HP, Centronics, or Woods. Also
the Tech Support engineer told me the Dell’s BIOS did not have EPP support as
needed by Minolta to correct this problem.
Dell only offers AT or PS2 support on the printer support settings
within Bios. The required HP cable was dropped shipped by Bill Riche on Friday.
It should have arrived on Monday 9/13
to your attention. Shelby was told to
hold it for you. I have opened a
trouble ticket with Minolta # 208953.
They told me that after replacing the cable if the problem persisted to
call them to further troubleshoot this problem. They also suggested trying another PC (not DELL) that did support
EPP printer support with NT and our application to test this problem. Please let me know
of the outcome of this situation as soon as possible. Thanks Juan |