Epson Printers in Vista?

[Hvatum]

I just eBay'd both of my older Epson printers (R320, CX3200) because they didn't have full Vista support. Now I shelled out $190 for the RX580 which claims to have full Vista support and has downloadable Vista drivers from Epson, but it won't detect it no matter what.

At the point where the Epson driver installer is supposed to detect the printer it auto-detects... nothing. Their Tech-support told me nothing which I couldn't have found in their online manuals. Has anyone here had any luck getting a newer Epson printer to work with Vista? Vista does auto-detect it as a "USB2.0 MFP" so the connection and printer are fine.

If you have an Epson printer in Vista, could you please tell me what port it's using? Is it using LTP1, COM1? The Epson support guy told me I should select "USB001" (or something like that) but this wasn't an option on the dropdown menu. Any ideas? :confused:

[djnes]

If USB001 isn't an option, are you sure your USB ports are enabled in the BIOS, and your chipset drivers are loaded?

[Hvatum]

Yup, USB ports are enabled in the BIOS. Chipset drivers are loaded as well, I've got an Nforce4 EVGA board, is there anything beyond the Nforce4 driver set that I should be installing?

I have a PCI USB card, and motherboard USB. It shows up in the device manager in either case as "USB2.0 MFP" (MFP stands for multi-function-printer I think). Soon I will be getting a PCIe 1x USB/Firewire card and I will give it a try in that.

[Catweazle]

You aren't trrying to install the printer with the thing connected and powered up, are you?

If so, isconnect, uninstall the driver, reboot, reinstall the driver and THEN connect up the printer.

USB printers are not supposed to be installed with the things already connected.

[Hvatum]

Nope. First I installed the drivers, then connected the printer. I've tried uninstalling, deleting all files manually, removing the new devices from the device manager, then rebooting, installing the Epson software again, and reconnecting the printer again. Still no luck. :(

[Catweazle]

It might sound silly, but you HAVE set it as the default printer, haven't you, considering that you seem to be geting an entry recorded for it?

[Hvatum]

It might sound silly, but you HAVE set it as the default printer, haven't you, considering that you seem to be geting an entry recorded for it?

Yeah, it shows up under the list of printers, but it doesn't actually connect with it. I can try printing from it using any application, and the job will show up in the print que but nothing ever happens with it. Also the Epson software doesn't detect it (No information about Ink levels etc.). I'm thinking about installing XP on a new partition just to see if there might be something wrong with the printer itself. I strongly suspect the issue is with Epson's Vista drivers though.

Kind of dissapointing to spend a reasonable chunck of change with nothing to show for it. The primary reason I bought this printer was that it advertised Vista support right off the bat. I was hoping putting down a little extra cash would save me trouble having to struggle with drivers in Vista. Looks like Epson might be in the same boat as Nvidia when it comes to Vista "support."

Also it's pretty cool that it has a scanner, DVD printer, normal printer, copying function and CD burning function (via external drive) all in one.

[BIGDADDY51]

My EPSON CX5000 installed without a problem . It used XPs drivers right off the Epson Software. You might try running the XP compatibility mode thingy.You might want to check MB MFG website ,nd see if there's a usb 2.0 driver there.

[96redformula]

Sounds like a USB problem....Wish I can help more. Come on all you experts out there.

Check Device manager and see if it is recognizing it being plugged into your computer. This is the first step to your solution.

[Catweazle]

I've always fallen back on the 'Sledgehammer' approach to USB related problems in XP. Perhaps it'll work in Vista too:

http://www.techwrighter.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=36&Itemid=36

[l3ender]

I have an Epson Stylus Color 880 that I installed (via LPT1) that works fine. It automatically installed drivers. I know it's an older printer, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

[Minus4]

I had the same problem with the 785 it showed up fine but it wouldn't print, turns out that my mb drivers weren't installed correctly, had to reinstall windows with the correct mb drivers from nvidia now everthing is running as smooth as silk. I also have a nforce 4 board. Also I couldn't update the drivers in vista I would always get BSOD after the driver update. But if you think every thing is installed ok try plugging in a flash drive in a usb slot if it asks for drivers and then tells you it couldn't find any and you still can't see the flash drive after its done, you don't have your drivers installed correctly and its time to start over. hope this helps..

[griffinhart]

I just eBay'd both of my older Epson printers (R320, CX3200) because they didn't have full Vista support. Now I shelled out $190 for the RX580 which claims to have full Vista support and has downloadable Vista drivers from Epson, but it won't detect it no matter what.

At the point where the Epson driver installer is supposed to detect the printer it auto-detects... nothing. Their Tech-support told me nothing which I couldn't have found in their online manuals. Has anyone here had any luck getting a newer Epson printer to work with Vista? Vista does auto-detect it as a "USB2.0 MFP" so the connection and printer are fine.

If you have an Epson printer in Vista, could you please tell me what port it's using? Is it using LTP1, COM1? The Epson support guy told me I should select "USB001" (or something like that) but this wasn't an option on the dropdown menu. Any ideas? :confused:

I'm using an Epson R200 and it's working fine. It's connected directly to my main PC via USB with every feature working. It's also connected to a wireless print server and every PC can print just ifne to it.

[Hvatum]

I had the same problem with the 785 it showed up fine but it wouldn't print, turns out that my mb drivers weren't installed correctly, had to reinstall windows with the correct mb drivers from nvidia now everthing is running as smooth as silk. I also have a nforce 4 board. Also I couldn't update the drivers in vista I would always get BSOD after the driver update. But if you think every thing is installed ok try plugging in a flash drive in a usb slot if it asks for drivers and then tells you it couldn't find any and you still can't see the flash drive after its done, you don't have your drivers installed correctly and its time to start over. hope this helps..

Yup! I tried both my iPod and a 32MB USB drive and both demonstrated the same problem. It says it couldn't find the drivers and they just show up as question marks in the device manager. How did you go about installing the USB drivers "correctly" for Vista?

[djnes]

That should all be handled by the chipset drivers.

[Minus4]

download latest nvidia drivers for your mb copy the hd drivers to a disk, reinstall vista using correct hd chipset drivers continue with vista install, when you reach your desktop install nvidia drivers and go from there.

[Hvatum]

download latest nvidia drivers for your mb copy the hd drivers to a disk, reinstall vista using correct hd chipset drivers continue with vista install, when you reach your desktop install nvidia drivers and go from there.

Ah. I feared I would have to do a full reinstall. Oh well :(

My board is the EVGA Nforce4 SLI edition. I tried installing the drivers from Nvidia's website for Nforce4 AMD boards but this didn't influence the USB situation.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce4_amd_winvista64_15.00.html

Could you please link to the drivers that I should put on a floppy. Is it the SMBus driver or SMU. Or maybe Nvidia has seperate USB drivers somewhere which I need to get?

[Minus4]

those are the ones, before I did the new install I tried to use just usb drivers and it didn't work also. so your just repeating the things I did. take the hd drivers from that package and use those for your install when you get vista installed use that same package and install the rest of the drivers. I did that on a gigabyte nf4 pro sli board thats running great now.

[Hvatum]

those are the ones, before I did the new install I tried to use just usb drivers and it didn't work also. so your just repeating the things I did. take the hd drivers from that package and use those for your install when you get vista installed use that same package and install the rest of the drivers. I did that on a gigabyte nf4 pro sli board thats running great now.

Thanks for the help :) That worked like a charm!

Printer is running without problems now. Nice to finally have all of my printing functions in one printer instead of two. DVD printer in this one works better then the one in the R320, you don't have to push it.

[ellover009]

Have a Epson CX6600, downloaded the newest drivers with the Microsoft tool and it recognizes the printer but it wont install the whole bios properly, I downloaded a set from Epson and it installs and all, the minute I press print it keeps feeding pages non stop without printing. I tried several things, I am running Vista RC1, will possibly get a OEM copy once I get a new hard drive or they release a new service pack that does an overhaul. I needed to print something immediately to I ended up bringing in the backup machine, using the usb memory card and moved the pdf to the flash usb drive to the old machine, I plugged in the printer and it worked from the start. Now If I can get it to work on Vista, not worried since I'm still using RC1.

[nessus]

I installed a cx5800F, both printer and scanner with no issues using the drivers released on 3/1 by Epson on an NForce board.

I only used the drivers for the MB that were included with the Vista DVD or downloaded when I checked for all softare and hardware upgdates through MS update.