USB ports

[Corporate Yank]

Gentlemen: (and computer savvy ladies, of course). Here's my problem. Three year old Dell 4600 desktop running win xp sp2. Six usb ports on BACK of the machine, of which two are occupied by flash drives for data backup. Have been using HP deskjet printer (parallel connection?) with excellent results. System has been stable since new. Now, arrival two days ago of a new Epson cx7000F all-in-one printer (usb connection). Win xp can't recognize printer (printer not ready, communication failure), or can't recognize flash drives after reboot. Try all usb ports for printer, no luck. Flash drives work in all ports. Device manager says all usb ports are fine. Now here's the best part. Plug printer into either of two usb ports on FRONT of the computer (meant for infrequent uses such as downloading pictures from a camera), and everything works just fine. What is happening here? Do I have to install an extra PCI usb board (I have spare slots)?
Thanks,
CY

[Jelly Baby Freak]

CY
Check which type of USB port the printer needs - old type - USB 1 or NEW type USB 2.
For my old pc, that had usb 1 connections, I purchased a usb extension that fitted into the old type slots but gave me 4 usb-type 2 slots to use.
This may fix your problem??.
JBF

[Corporate Yank]

Thanks JBF for the reply. I just checked my owner's manual again, and confirmed that the 6 USB ports (rear) and the 2 USB ports (front) are all USB 2.0. Still stumped. Even the tech rep at Epson couldn't give me a solid answer on what's wrong.

CY

[frostbite]

My Dell appears to be the same - anything new will work fine from the front USB, older stuff plugs in the rear.

[extreme P]

Maybe a long shot but after massive USB problems kept crashing my brand new Dell I uninstalled as many USB devices as I could. After a reboot the devices are recognized and reinstalled. Been stable since.

[seacue]

At a field site I was faced with attaching a small HP inkjet printer to an HP laptop that came to us in the same donation from HP. Both brand new.

Of course HP's WinXP would know about the printer and I could ignore the printer's installation CD. After all they were delivered together. WRONG! Printing wouldn't work until I ran the installation from the CD that came with the printer. We knew that we wouldn't have to print much so only brought a few sheets of paper, all of which were spoilt in the failed attempts.

So.... you might try an installation disk if the all-in-one came with one.

[Loose rivets]

Yep, me too. HP AMD 18 months old. Have to use front USB for some things cos the rear ones won't work. I've just accepted it.

[Corporate Yank]

I did install the Epson software that came with the all-in-one. I uninstalled it and then reinstalled same wondering if a file was corrupted during the original install. It appears that either win xp or the dell tower is incapable of handling more than two items in the six port rear usb bay. If I have to live with this, then so be it. But my thinking as a consumer is, why did dell give us the six ports if they cannot support the anticipated loads? Maybe the answer is beyond we mere mortals.

Thanks everybody for your comments,

CY

[seacue]

It has been more than a month, but I recollect that (in my case) the HP printer installation process required that the printer be plugged into the computer and turned on before the software installation.