I have a Lexmark X5150 All-In-One and love it.  Never had one second of trouble out of it.  Ink cartages seem to last longer than any printer I've ever had. It cost under a 150 bucks and out performs my older HP1175 that cost over 900 a few years ago.

By any chance did you upgrade the OS to win xp?? You stated you reformatted. Does that mean you did a clean install (ie full install with no installation over existing OS) of the OS? The reason I ask is if you do an upgrade only and/or install over an existing OD partition (option in OS installation), the USB ports corrupt and the Lexmark will not work with their on-line drivers and definitely not with the cd Drivers. If this is not your problem, I am sorry to interfear. It happened to me and when I did the clean OS install and used the Lexmark drivers off their site as well as their patches, everything worked fine. It  has continued to work over many months. PS Did you get another brand of printer to work? I tried several and none worked until the clean install.  Hope you at least got a printer to work because I know how frustrating it can be.

Message Edited by dogin on 12-17-2003 11:40 AM

epson printers work on my system, it is a brand new western digital 60 gb hard drive with a 8 mb cache with nothing on it.  the instalation was done with dell support installing xp pro.  i have contacted dell and we have tried about 3 hours worth of fixes reinstalled the soft wear for the lexmark printer twice.  all updates have been applied  for usb ports and a another update for compatability issues.  have tried turning off the bio directional comunication, enabled and disableing spooling,  through control panel , printer and properties.  nothing works .  lost as to what to do next.....and they are sending me a new printer as before and they admitt it will not work.  i have  also notified lexmark at their emal address for customer service  custrep@lexmark.com.  with a link to this post and have recieved no reply.  great customer service .....not...................

 

thanks for replying to this i appreciate any and all suggestions to help me solve this issue.  after christmas im going to buy me a good printer anything but a lexmark.........

Maybe this will help:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;822968&Product=winxp

Yes that was also tried. Still no luck ....................

 

But thanks for the sugestion..........

I'm right there with you.  I have a Lexmark X83 sitting in my closet.  Piece of junk.  I buy brand new cartridges for it at $50 each only to have them show as empty 2 weeks later.  Even though I rarely use them.  I bought an Epson C64 and have had no problems.  If I hadn't paid $200 for the piece of junk X83, I would  take it out side and take a bat to it.  I guess it will continue to decorate my closet until I find someone who wants it.

rjt--

dang, sorry to hear about your problems.  I don't have any suggestions but just wanted express my sympathy.  I can feel your frustration because I had  problems with an HP all-in-one not too long ago and I swore never to buy an HP product again.  On the other hand, I've had three Lexmark printers that I've run with Dell computers and they all worked flawlessly.  I'm now using a Lexmark X6170 with a Dimension 8250 with no problems.

Lexmark makes the Dell branded printers.  Dell always says in the printer features list that they've been tested to work and be compatible with Dell computers.  I suppose that would sometimes make sense to buy a Dell branded printer just for that reason.  Well, maybe not. *shrugs*

Hope you can figure out something soon.

--'rocco    

 

I guess the thing that burns me the most is that lexmark wont do anything but ship me a new printer that wont work. I call and they say OH WELL ........ We will ship you a new printer but wont fix the problem. But we will blame dell for it...

I just got printer number 3 and still have the same problem...... I think I will call them and have them ship out printer number 4....Then number 5 and 6....... till my warrenty runs out.....

Call in and ask for the shift manager (If they say they are not available, leave your number and tell them if you  don't hear back within 24 hrs. you will be forced to rate their service and product unacceptable on resellers rating. com and other rating/forum sites. Tell them they keep sending you printers, but do not fix the problem and you want a refund.

 

dogin,

 I agree 100% on the ink indicator. its put there to boost sells. kinda like a car I had on time that every 15,000 miles the check engine light would come on. I would take it to the dealer and in 10 minutes and 65.00 the light was out! BUT i still think on average h.p. is a better quality printer