Weird Problem - Power Workstation 450 w/ HP Photosmart 7760

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

I'm having a weird issue with a computer I'm trying to fix for a friend. He
recently purchased a Power Workstation 450 and attached his previously owned
HP Photosmart 7760 photo printer to this machine. The printer works fine
with his previous computer, but behaves strangely when attached to the new
Dell. Specifically, it spits out 2 blank pages intermittently with one
partial line of ASCII text printed at the top. (Intermittently means every
time a print job is initiated, and also just randomly from time to time with
no warning)

The text usually starts off with "USB", then some letters, then some
gibberish characters, then USB again, followed by some more letters,
followed by some more gibberish characters... you get the idea. An example:
"USBCUQNI$#####USBCSDOM(#" (the pound signs stand for gibberish characters).
The printer is connected through a USB port on the Dell, of course.

A little more information that may help to narrow things down: 1) The LCD
display on the front of the printer says "Printing..." *all* the time,
regardless of whether or not it is actually printing or not. 2) the printer
is equipped with a multi-card reader, which seems to only intermittently be
recognized by the system. 3) There are two USB connections on the printer;
the "main" connection, and also another secondary connection on the front
panel which supports only printing (the multi-card reader is not functional
when this connection is used). The weird behavior seems to occur only when
the "main" connection is used; when the secondary connection is used the
printer seems to act normally. 4) There are also a wireless NIC and a set of
USB speakers attached to the computer, which both seem to work fine. 5) The
printer will sometimes work correctly *once* if its USB connection is
unplugged and plugged back in while the computer is running. After that
first print job, it won't work right util it is unplugged again, even if the
computer is restarted.

So far, I have tried downloading and installing the latest printer drivers
from HP, as well as using several different USB ports on the Dell. Nothing
seems to help. I also checked on the Dell web site for updated USB drivers
and/or a fix for this problem, but there is nothing in the download area
that seems to apply. Windows XP is the OS; it is up-to-date and running SP2.

Since the printer works fine with his other computer (A fairly new Compaq,
also running WinXP) I am thinking that this is a problem with the Dell. Has
anyone run across anything like this, and if so, is there a solution to the
problem? Possibly a mobo firmware update I have overlooked, or a set of
updated USB drivers that aren't listed on dell's web site?

Thanks in advance for any light anyone can shed on this problem. It will be
much appreciated.

Jason