Brother Printer works intermittently with new computer {RESOLVED}

My Brother 1440 worked perfectly for several years with old computer. Purchased a Dell with Media Center and printer works only after I go through a certain routine. I loaded in printer driver and could not print. Discovered that computer had created a copy 1 version of the printer and only copy 1 will print.

When I boot up, I might be able to print immediately. However, an hour or so later, a print job will not print. I have to turn the printer off and back on and it will print a job from MS word. Consecutive jobs it will print, but if there is a delay between jobs, I have to turn the printer off and then back on to print.

If I try to print an envelope label, envelope, or CD label, I first have to print the job on plain paper and then it will print the label or envelope.

What in the heck is going on?

Did you go to Brother's website and download the full driver package for XP or are you using the old driver? If old driver, you might want to visit the site below and get an updated/xp driver package.

http://solutions.brother.com/hl1400/...ml#full_driver

Photolady:

Why didn't I think of that? I am using the old driver that came with the printer way back then. Will try it tonight and get back to you. Thanks.

Quote:

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I am using the old driver

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I thought you might be. I do believe a new driver will fix your problems. Especially, if this old driver isn't for your new operating system. ;)

Photolady:

You did the hard part, but I can not even do the easy part.

I downloaded the driver to my desktop. It is in the form of a zip file. The first time, I unzipped the files to my desktop, hoping to see one or more that says Install Driver for 1440 or something similar. Instead I get 28 files and when I click on each, I get a message that asks what program do I want to use to open this file. I then tried to download the driver, hoping for an option that says Open this file. However, Firefox would only allow me to save to my desktop. So, I can download to my desktop, but cannot open or install the driver.

Make a new folder on the desktop, then highlight all those files it extracted and move them to the new folder by right clicking the highlighted files, and chosing "Move" in the contextual menu. You should have a file in there that says "Setup.exe" click on that one and it should install. But you need all the files in one folder not scattered all over your desktop.

Unzipped all the files to a folder on the desktop. Of the 28, most are HL files, DL files, or PPD files. There is no file that is named setup.exe or anything close to that.

When I click on each file, I get the same message:
Windows cannot open this file. To open, Windows needs to know what program created it.

aob did you download the Full Printer Driver Disk Package for Windows NT4.0/2000/XP which is 10.3MB?

If so, after you have unzipped the files to your folder you should see that you have folders Disk 1 to Disk 8. Inside Disk 1 you should see setup.exe.

Hope that helps:)

You guys are right, once again. I had not downloaded the full package. As soon as I did, I found the setup file, clicked on it, the driver was installed and the printer seems to be working well.

Thanks much for your help. (It is interesting to note that I asked Brother for the same help yesterday and still have not heard from their tech support.)

I see P3 stepped in while I was away and got you fixed up aob. Glad to hear it's working correctly now.

And you probably will never hear from Brother's tech support either, that's why VDR is so great. Answers now, not next year after you've sold the printer. :D

AOB,
I have the same Brother Printer HL-1440. I just installed it on my Print Server yesterday so we could use it on 3 or 4 more computers. Its been hooked up on our main computer with XP Pro. I used the drivers that came with the printer and it works fine from 5 computers. 1 on XP Pro and the other 4 on XP Home.
I had it hooked to a computer with WinME and did have to download other drivers. I see yours is on Media Center. I wonder if Media Center is kind of like ME? ME was released because people were being impatient for a new OS, hadn't had a new OS for almost 3 yrs. XP has been around for awhile and again people were impatient, so Microsoft released Media Center in the wait for Windows Vista! Just Wondering?

Media Center is nothing like ME, which was actually a lot like win98. Media Center is just XP with extra media abilities, the burner in Media Center actually burns dvds, unlike the one in regular xp.

Thanks photolady, I've never used Media Center. I've also never used the Windows XP burning software. I don't buy a burner unless it comes with Nero! I guess I have used Windows XP burning software, I used it to back up my daughters computer. Someone gave me a CD burner that didn't have software so I couldn't use it until XP came out and had burning software on it, so now its in my daughters computer. Never knew it didn't burn DVD's but that makes sense! I use Nero & DVD Cloner II, I usually don't have any problems at all.

Well, I don't use xp's cd burning software either. It's Nero or nothing.

And you're welcome for the explanation help wise. ;)