I am P133 PC running Windows 95b. This printer is called a GDI printer…what does that mean? If I attach the printer and turn it on, the PC will not power on. If I turn off the printer, and then turn on the PC, it works. I can then turn the printer on and start the installation using the latest Panasonic drivers from the Panasonic web site, but just before the installation of the printer driver completes, the machine hard hangs, with no mouse cursor movement and numlock light locked on. I have to use the reset button on the computer to restart the machine. When the machine reboots, Windows tells me it has found new hardware and is installing the software for it. It starts the driver installation again and of course just ends up hanging again. I tried starting windows in “Safe Mode” and installing the driver which worked, but when I go to reboot, windows still finds the printer as new hardware and starts installing the driver again which leads to the computer hanging. If I “cancel” the new hardware wizard, the machine hangs just after putting up the desktop icons. I’ve physically removed the AWE sound card and 3C509 network card so that all that remains in the machine is the PCI video card and mainboard with associated on board IDE, floppy, and I/O controllers. Windows device manager reports no problems with the LPT1 port. I have removed the LPT1 port from the device manager list and had windows find it and reinstall it. I have tried setting the parallel port to standard bi-directional, and EPP, and ECP with no difference in the symptoms. The printer works fine when we install it on another machine, and we have successfully installed a HP5L laser printer on this machine. This machine previously had other dot matrix and bubble jet printers attached to it with no problems. Have I just wasted over $400.00 on a laser printer that won’t work?

As long as the printer is compatible with your computer and system then you should not be having trouble with it. Probably the best solution would be to reinstall Windows 95. This will give the computer the opportunity to start fresh and detect the printer during the installation. Compared with what you have already been through reinstalling Windows should seem a somewhat minor job. However you could lose all the data on your hard disk and you will probably have to reinstall all your programs that run under Windows. If having reinstalled Windows and the printer successfully, the computer won’t power up if the printer is on, you may have a power supply problem. If the printer is connected to the computer through the power outlet that is on the back of the tower, take the computer to an authorized repairer because there may be a problem with the power supply (eg. it may be overloaded). If it isn’t connected to the computer but instead straight to a power outlet or power board, still take your computer to a repairer because the only way that this could occur would be through an electrical problem.