printer/usb problem

All of a sudden, my hp photosmart is giving me an error when I try to print a color document. It gets about half way through and then says "there was an error found when printing to dot4-003" and prints out half the document and then prints the rest of it on a second page. This same document has printed fine before. Also, sometimes it will print the page once, but then the error message will come on again the next time I try to print. It doesn't happen with text pages. Just with these graphic-heavy Publisher pages.

Things I've done:

checked the device manager to make sure the controller and the two ports were ok (i have two usb ports).

replaced the usb cable.

Turned everything off and on again.

Tried the printer in the other computer usb port. Same problem.

The printer is connected directly to the computer so there isn't a hub problem.

I run win2k.

HP support tried to sell me another printer. Since this one is just over a year old, I am resisting that.

Please help if you've seen this before or know how to fix it.

Thanks

 

Will try on Sunday and let you know what happens