June 1, 2005

Hi, All!

This Week: A puzzlement

Last week I wrote about a problem that two PC's were having with AVG FREE. I have not had any time to look into that problem and I only mention it because there may be a relationship with another problem that has appeared on a second PC of mine.

For unknown reasons (at this point), whenever we try to print to either of two printers, one networked and one USB connected to the PC, the PC reboots.

This sounds like a virus, but this PC has AVG FREE, Norton Anti-virus, Xoftspy, and Microsoft's anti-spy software. True, we could have a new virus that none of the above companies has found or has fixed, but that would be highly unlikely, and if it was infected, I would think all PC's on my house network would be infected (thank goodness they are not).
So if it is not a virus, what can it be? XP has a very nice feature in that whenever a PC reboots abnormally, it automatically sends a error report to Microsoft and they send back a possible reason and a fix. The fix told me to click on a link to bring up Microsoft's update web site and download a new driver for our network card. OK!, sounds good, clicked on the link, and low and behold there were no updates for our network card, there were no updates for that PC at all, as we use Windows Update and it keeps our PC current.

So I search for name of the driver that the error report mentioned, and nowhere in Microsoft does that driver exist! Now what? For the time being, we have just been using one PC to print everything; fortunately, the second PC does not need to print very often.

Next is to find the manufacturer of the network card and check its web site for an updated driver to see if that fixes it. I will try to get that done before next week and let you know if that worked.

'Til next week,
Robert
(ComputerFAQ#243)



Robert

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