Vista and Epson collour 680

[JohnRoss]

Hi I have a Dell Inspiron 531 running Vista Home Premium and I am trying to print using an Epson Stylus Colour 680. Sometimes it works and sometimes not. When it does not I often get the message not connected. Even when it gives the ready message it often does not print and says error. Sometimes a reeboot of the computer fixes the problem and other times not. Any suggestions folks?........................JR

[JohnRoss]

Additional data

 

Forgot to say that the printer and USB cable works ok on another computer running Millenium.......JR

[Plastic Nev]

Hi John, I am surprised it works at all on Vista, I have just looked on the Epson site for drivers for it and they don't even offer one for XP never mind Vista. It will most certainly be a driver issue, but how we can get round that I am not sure. However have a look round the Epson site, see if you can spot something I might have missed-

Epson Driver Download

Otherwise I can only recommend a new and made for Vista printer, unless someone else knows of a way round.

Nev.

[JohnRoss]

Thanks

 

Hi and thanks for the reply. I guess you are only confirming what I had already suspected. It used to work on this machine, the Dell, but recently has been playing up and since the last Windows update not at all. The link you kindly gave shows nothing for drivers compatable with Vista and from what I have seen on the net others have had similar problems. I do have a Dell printer for this machine but I don't like using it too much as the ink is so expensive compared with the Epson. I guess I will have to use it on my old machine for printing downloads and that is a pain as it is getting very old and creaky running as it does Windows Millenium! There are a lot of French forums, I am located in France, giving similar reports of people buying a second hand 680s and finding it does not work with Vista. Ok c'est la vie and thanks again........................JR

[JohnRoss]

Back to normal but why?

 

Hi and again it has got weird! Switched on this morning and all now working! Makes no sense as I tried switching it all off and back on several times yesterday and that did not fix it. Maybe Windows has done another update and put right something they did on the last update if so not the first time of late as have other problems of Windows doing weird things for a day or two and then correcting itself or so it would seem!............................JR

[JohnRoss]

Another theory shot down!

 

PS Just checked and no updates since the 9th so I now have no explanations.............JR

[Plastic Nev]

Hi John, thanks for the update, at least it is working again for now, but sometimes these things happen and seemingly for no reason. However that printer is getting a tad long in age. If you wish to stay with Epson they do make new machines that quite happily run on Vista so if you can afford it, I would start with a new one.