> I will totally undermine Mousit's purpose, warping it to bend to my own will. Yah hah! [IOW, sorry]
>
> OK, I, too, have a computer problem. Now, I know next to nothing about this little off-white collection of boxes that I'm typing on, so you'll excuse me if I make any faux pas or errors or shtuff.
>
> OK, a bit ago I had to revert the 'settings' thingee [when the computer starts up, not in Windows] to default. The printer promptly stopped working. The settings I can find are correct to the best of my knowledge. When I try to print, I get a message that says something about an invalid port... or printer not comfigured to correct port... something like that. I checked and it's plugged completely into the correspondingly labled hole. I've tried to copy the message, but it won't let me and it disappears if I try to type it using a separate window. I get this feeling that it's one of those stupid little things that people would have assumed I already tried.
>
> Don't lose any sleep over this. I'm just wondering if there's some amazingly simple wonder cure- y'know, like, whack the monitor or something- that even I can understand and apply.
>
> Chris

Ok, I don't think I can help Mousie, but HardWare I know. Go back into the CMOS SETUP where you changed to the DEFAULT settings. Look for a section that reads something like INTEGRATED PERIPHERALS. When you find it go into it and look for the following:

1) LPT PORT
2) PARALLEL PORT
or
3) PRINTER PORT

If you don't have INTEGRATED PERIPHERALS just go through each section looking for one of the above.
When you have found the section you're looking for you first want to make sure the printer port is turned on. There should be an ENABLE/DISABLE toggle. Next make sure the port is set at address 378h. If an IRQ or INTERRUPT is registered it should be at 7. Sometimes it doesn't let you control that. Next see if there is a place to change the mode. This, if present, will toggle between the following:

1)NORMAL
2)SPP
3)ECP
4)EPP
5)ECP/EPP

Set it for ECP/EPP. This is the speed that the data is transferred from the port to the printer. ECP/EPP is recommended, and sometimes necessary, for todays high speed printers to print correctly. If you set the machine to default settings the port was probably set back to NORMAL, if not disabled all together. Now save the changes and reboot the machine. When Windows comes up you will probably see it detect a new port. Sometimes it doesn't actually show this but most times it will. When Windows is completely up try printing. If this doesn't work I'd find someone close who works on computers and have him/her run a loop back test on the port to make sure it's still working.

Drac