"Bumping" HP 4200C scanner

Hi All,

We have an HP 4200C scanner that seems to take forever to get going when I "wake up" the computer. It bumps for a minute or more before the light comes on and it finishes its 'self test' (I guess) and releases the computer's resources to do something else.

I have the latest available software installed from HP's website. I remember that HP had a small patch for this problem that could be downloaded seperately but. . . no longer. They have since supposedly combined all of their patches and fixes for this particular product into one large 34+MB download.

This new software is a vast improvement on what shipped with the 4200C but the 'bumping' is still a problem. Does anyone else out there have the same problem or know of a fix?

As always, any and all help will be greatly appreciated.


Mike

 

Hi Mike,

I know that this won't be much help, but my 4200C did the same thing on Win98. Once I put it on my new XP system, it runs alot better. I also applied the patch from HP and it didn't help that much. Not sure why it runs better on XP, but I like it.

Did you apply the large download to see if that helps?

Mike

 

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, I did install the big download. It did help to some degree but it still takes much longer to do whatever it's doing than it did with the small 'bump patch' of old.

I'll keep looking for a fix. Maybe someone out there has an idea.

I'm running Win98SE, obtw.


Thanks again!


Mike

 

Hi again, MM !

I typed "HP 4200C bump patch" into my Google toolbar and it spat this out at me, among other things.

I'll let you know if it works.


Mike

 

indutch,

Hopefully, that will help a little bit. Do let me know how you come out with it.

Mike

 

MM,

I downloaded and installed the "Lamp Patch" from above link and it now spends much less time 'bumping and grinding' on this system upon "wake-up" than it did without it.

It still "bumps" 14-18 times when I call the HP Precision Scan LT software up to copy, scan or e-mail via the scanner but. . . I don't care so much about that since I only use the scanner and its software about 6 or 8 times a month.

My biggest gripe was waiting for the scanner to finish doing whatever it was doing because it caused an error in MailWasher that wouldn't allow MW to find my mail connection until after the scanner had completely finished all its bumping and grinding (60 - 90 seconds).

Isn't it amazing how that miniscule bit of time has become so-o-o-o important to us all since we invited one or more of these infernal machines to invade our homes and our lives??

Wasting a whole afternoon on the couch watching a couple of NFL games - or a rained out NASCAR event - seems so inconsequential when compared to waiting a few seconds for a da**ed computer to do what we think it should do in the blink of an eye or a heartbeat !!

Sheesh

Thanks for the reply !!


Mike

 

Mike,

Good to hear that the patch worked for you. I know what you mean about the time. These things should just be ready to go once you hit the power button! No waiting. Maybe someday. Too bad the first race of the year was rain shortened.

Mike

 

UPDATE

I finally fixed the "bumping" problem completely.

I put the offending HP 4200 scanner in another room across the house and replaced it with an HP 3570 scanner. No problem!!

 

indutch,

Well, I guess that will work also!

Mike

 

Christer,

I had problems with the buttons on my 4200 also. Once I installed the scanner on my WinXP system, everything worked as it should. It still takes a little bit to load on startup, but all the buttons work. Hopefully, you will have the same results!

Mike

 

Christer,

If I understand you correctly, as far as I know, you have to use HP's software to scan. Once it's scanned, you can send it to any program. For example, I scan a picture and can send it to my PhotoShop program for touching up and print from there.

Hopefully, that answers your question.

Mike

 

Christer,

I did some looking at the Second Glance web site and it looks like it's only compatible with MAC machines. Even if you could use it with Windows, the HP 4300 scanners are not compatible. I was looking at ScanTastic, version 4. You might want to look around the site if your friend has a different version. Otherwise, it looks like it might work for what you had in mind.

Mike

 

Christer,

You're welcome. I too was hesitant about XP, but my wonderful system made the choice for me. When it died, I didn't have much of a choice. It took a little bit to get use to, but now I like it. My scanner works better, so that helped!

Mike