[Date Prev][Date Next] [Chronological] [Thread] [Top]

Minolta Printer Problem at Shelby Co.



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