help..Epson870 not comp with winXP??

[ravenmd]

gosh I hope someone here can help me

I have just convered to Win XP and all seemed happy and harmonious... 2450 Scanner and XP got along fine, tablet, etc.

It "said" the Epson 870 printer driver (from Epson.com) for XP was installed fine.. but when I try to print to it, I get 2-3 lines of gibberish nonsense on each sheet of paper and that's it.. sheet after sheet after sheet after shee..

I tried using the WinXP driver, I tried deleting it completely, uninstalll, reboot, get new copy, do it again. Went through that several times to no avail. It's like suddenly my 870 is from another planet.

Anyone else encountered this?

[Ed_L]

Yes I have. I'll tell you what to do for $2000.00. For some reason, this happens every so often. I think you need to uninstall everything for the 870, then re-install it. It only takes a few minutes, butI had to do that on two or three occasions. I always keep the new downloaded file in case I need it again in the future. Good luck. A side note...make sure you have the Epson driver activated instead of the Windows driver.

Ed

[ravenmd]

Thanks Ed! Got it printing away perfectly again.

Now the sound doesn't work .. no sound on puter at all. arrrgghhh
"It's always something." -Gilda Radner's granma




Your check is in the mail.

[Ed_L]

You're welcome. Sorry, but I can't help with the sound.

Ed

[ravenmd]

well nevermind.. I fixed it.


Can't live without music

[ravenmd]

Well I spoke too fast. The Epson printed ONE sheet and then went crazy again.

I'm not sure what you meant Ed by "uninstall everything for the 870".

I have completely unistalled the drivers approx 9 times in the past few days. Every time I reinstall the driver then turn on the machine, WinXP adds it's own driver like it doesn't see the one I put. It shows up that I have 2 printers. I always select the Epson driver one but it still doesn't print right.

This printer has been a nightmare from the get-go. It glops ink all over the place. I have sent it back to Epson once.. they fixed it.. sent it back.. it was back to glopping ink within one week. I'm very ready to throw it out the window. It has ruined more sheets of expensive paper than the *$#&@)* printer is worth. Kept customers waiting.. it's so unreliable.

Does anyone know of a GOOD alternate photo printer? Is it just me or do Epson printers give others this sort of grief?

[Ed_L]

With Windows XP --- Click on Ctr'l Panel -- Add or remove programs -- There you should find Epson Printer Software. Click on it, then select "Remove". I *think* that will only remove the printer software, but leave the ink monitor intact. If you click on Epson Printer Software again, you should be able to remove the monitor software this time. I'm not sure this is necessary, but for the amount of time it takes, I remove this as well. Reinstall both files. It *should* work now. I've had very good service from my 870. If you send it in for repair, I'm pretty sure they just send you one that's already been repaired in place of the one you sent in. So even if you have problems again, it's not likely to be the same problem.

Ed

[ravenmd]

Called Epson. After much testing we determined there is something physically wrong with this printer... the EXACT SAME problem I had before while it was still under warranty and they fixed it that time but now say the warranty is over so too bad for me.

Life of one $400 Epson 870 printer: 18 months

I whined and protested so finally the tech offered to submit my "case" to customer service. We shall see. Wish me luck.

[G. Couch]

Tell them you planned on ordering one of their $900 printers at some point but are thinking twice about it now!

[Ed_L]

Marie,

If you don't get a satisfactory answer, I suggest you ask to speak to a supervisor. No luck there either? Talk to their supervisor. Often times, you can do better with someone higher up. If nothing else, maybe they could make a deal with you by giving you a couple hundred off one of their better printers. It's sure worth a try, and it could be a win/win situation. They would rather you told 500 people here that they gave you a satisfactory answer, rather than to tell us they weren't interested in your case. Sorry to hear you've had so much trouble with it.

Ed

[ravenmd]

Well I just got off the phone with Epson and I'm more than a little disappointed and with them.

The repair guy on the phone told me:
the ink cartridge light is flashing (it was NOT just before I unplugged it to pack it) so he wants to charge me for 2 new cartridges.

He said the paper feed is broken! This problem did NOT exist at all when I packed it to send or I most certainly would have menioned it in the letter.

And.. they say the print head must be replaced.. which WAS the original issue. This particular LEMON has globbed ink on everything since it was only a few months old. They fixed it once (did not replace print head.. only "adjusted" it but the problem was back within a month. Now they say too bad for me it's out of warranty and they want $170 to fix it. The supervisor argued that this is a "very good deal". I said that was a bit hard to take.. $400 cdn for a printer that only works ok for less than one year. Basically, the supervisor's response was that's life.

The bottom line is if I don't pay $170 I get my printer back as is.. apparently in even worse shape than when I sent it to them.

[chris h]

Was any further progress made with the printer ?

[Doug Nelson]

How long is your printer cord? I had trouble with my 1270 in XP (basically the same printer, just bigger), and tracked it down to my too-generous cord length (I was running it in parallel mode).

I switched over to a shorter USB cable and one or the other fixed it fine.

[ravenmd]

Actually, out of desperation and much urging from the supervisor at Epson repairs in Toronto I did end up paying the $170 + 15% tax and for a grand total of just over $600 cdn invested in this thing. (not including all the wasted photo paper and ink). I now have an outdated chronicly problematic printer that STILL doesn't work right.

I have a 6 ft USB cable. Even tried switching it. We created a new spooler as recommended. I have the correct driver from epson.com. I have all the settings correct and verified time and time again. All other periferals on my computer work beautifully so it's not the computer or windows as Epson suggests. I even have an Epson 2450 scanner which is a dream (so far). The few times in the life of this 870 printer that it DID work correctly, the prints were very satisfactory. So much so that I highly recommended it to several others who consequently bought the same machine. Mine has been useless since it was 6 months old. They did "fix" it once when it was 13 months old but all they did was tweek the print head. About a month (and 4 prints) later it was back to blobbing ink on everything. Foolishly I was patient (or exasperated) and did not call Epson right away. When I finally did call they said send it to us.. I did. Once they had it ... suddenly the paper feed was broken too. (it wasn't when I packed it) and they now offered to change the print head and fix the suddenly malfunctioning feed for $170.

Just got it back on Tuesday. Now the ink blobbing issue "seems" to be gone but it is printing gibberish and ruining reems of paper. If the cost was not such an issue for me I would derrive great satisfaction from holding a demolition derby on this EPSON PRINTER FROM HELL.

[ravenmd]

Oh and one more thing while I'm ranting here.. the repair supervisor guy assured me several times that included in that repair fee is a new warranty of 90 days more.

I called Epson tech support today. They flat refused to help me unless I gave a credit card number and paid a 9.95 fee.

I told him I feel I have invested enough it this thing now. thank you, but goodbye.

Instead I wrote an email to the "free" tech support at the website.


-end of rant-