My mother's laptop / printer have recently gone nuts after 3+ years working happily together. Her setup is a Dell Inspiron 5100 (XP SP2) and an Epson Stylus C62.

The issue seems to coincide with the recent installation the XP service pack 2. 

Issue is that when she tries to print from most apps (especially Internet Explorer) the printer throws a fit and spits out half pages of the content she wanted mixed with pages of random text / garbled images and plenty of blank pages for good measure. Also, interestingly, the cartridge status window does not show the ink levels as it used to. [NOTE: only OEM cartridges have ever been used on this printer]

Issue now occurs on any printer installed on the computer. Tried another (brand-new, straight out of the box) printer, an epson R200, and the same thing happened.

She has taken it to a PC repair clinic and they weren't able to fix the issue.

Poor women is at her wit's end and I hoped someone here could help out where the "professionals" were found wanting.

Corrective actions tried so far include:
- ran nozel cleaning / head alignment diagnostics
- replaced cartridges ... just in case
- uninstalled epson stylus c62
- reinstalled epson c62
- uninstalled "usb printing support" & all "USB root hub" instances in device manager (as per suggestion from Epson.com)
- reinstalled above

Infuriatingly, the last step above fixes the problem until you shut-down ... then the next time you turn the computer on, it's crazy-time again.

Seems like USB is the cause ... something happened after the SP2 install.  Has anyone heard of something like this and now how to correct it?

 

Thanks in advance for any assistance provided ... my mother's sanity ( :smileymad: ) hangs in the balance.