Printer not communicating with computer

The reply below  for a V313 printer issue appears to work for the V515W printer as well.

SecretAgentClank

Posted by SecretAgentClank on 6 Dec 2013 2:02 PM Verified Answer

Verified by dakotadude1963

Hello everybody,

I have the Dell V313 Printer on my mom's Computer for about three years. Here are some lessons that I have learned. I hope this will help other People:

The Printer works with Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1. I had the Printer running fine with all These operating Systems.

When it prints, the print results are okay for such a low-Price model.

After about three years, the Printer head died. Fortunately, I had an Extended warranty and had it replaced for free. If the Printer head dies and you don't have the warranty, bad luck. The Printer head costs about the same as a new Printer. The warranty also costs the same as a new Printer. I think this is what you have to accept when buying such a low-Price model.

Here is some advice that Dell Support won't give you, but Comes from hours fiddling with the Drivers:

Do not use the CD that Comes with the Driver. Do not download any Drivers. It is much easier:

Just plug in the USB cable and Windows (7/8/8.1) will automatically download the necessary Drivers from Windows Update. These Drivers are tested from Microsoft and quite reliable. Be Patient. The download can take a couple of minutes. Just wait until a bubble Pops up telling you that "the device can be used now".

There will be an Icon on the Desktop or somewhere else telling you to "download additional Software to complete the Installation". This will take you to a download from Lexmark. I suggest you do not download this Software. It is not necessary, but makes the Driver Situation worse (see below).

The Driver from Windows Update enables you to print and scan from all applications using the Windows standard printing and scanning interfaces.

Now here is the Problem that everybody runs into after a while:

Suddenly, the Printer does not print any more. Maybe you get an error saying "the communication with the Printer failed".

What does not help: unplug and re-plug the USB cable does not help.

Pressing "print" again and again does not help.

What does help: restart Windows. I mean, re-boot. Pressing the power button on your Computer will probably set the Computer in standby. This is not a reboot. You have to find the button for "Windows shutdown". Use Google if you don't know where to find this in Windows 7 or 8.

Here is what happens:

The Printer Driver from Lexmark installs a Service. This is nothing bad or unusual. The Service is responsible for Extended functions like showing the Status of your ink cartridges. The Service is called "dlea_Service" or something similar with "dlea".

As I have found out, this Service sometimes crashes when Windows Wakes up from standby or Hibernation. This is the single reason for this whole Problem.

What you can do to get the Printer running without getting mad:

If you technical skills are low, just save all your work and re-boot the Computer. It is annoying but if your Computer boots fast, it is acceptable.

If your technical skills are high, you can try to restart the Service through the command line. Sometimes it works. But it requires Administrator priviledges, so it is not a solution for my mum.

If your technical skills are very high, you can go into Windows Services Manager and tell Windows to restart the Service automatically after a Crash. I am not sure if this helps. I have not run enough tests for this way.

Why not install the additional Software from Lexmark?

The additional Software will give you some nice Options in the printer's control Panel (in System Settings). Things like optical character recognition or "scan to pdf and send with E-Mail". It can be useful.

However, the additional Software installs even more Services and messes up the Drivers even more. My personal opinion is that most customers don't Need this.

Printing with Windows is straight Forward and does not require any additional Software.

Scanning can be difficult for some People. You can use the scanner with all applications that Support the Standard Interface. For example, in Windows Live Photo Gallery, it is called "Import". It will bring up the operating system's scanning dialogue. It is not fancy but it works fine.

In Windows 8.1, I recomed he new "Scanner" app. You just Need to press one button, called "scan". Open the scanned Picture. Now use the new "share" function in the charms bar to share by E-Mail. No additional Software required. It can't get easier than that!

I hope this helps somebody out there! Smile

V313 printer

Hi,

Don't know if you're still out there after all this time. Thanks for all the tips, but none of it worked. I suspect the printer head is dead and I might as well replace this thing even though it's only 7 years old.Naturally, this **bleep** happens just when ID theft and other financial problems strike.But thanks for trying to help anyway.