I have an Epson 1670 scanner which works fine, until it decides to disappear. Then when I press the desktop icon I get the message, 'scanner can not be started'. My personal solution is unplug the USB cable and replug. Immediately the 'Epson Scan' program appears and I can do the scanning with no problem. Any ideas to keep the 1670 from losing the usb port? Bye and thanks Fred

Look it the event viewer for errors. Start, run, eventvwr.msc press enter.

Muy estimado guapo:- Thanks for tip, though I am not on a LAN, just an ADSL internet net connection Yes, I get other errors logged:- for example some recent (this month)past crashes, an Ad-aware update and a web page that SeaMonkey didn't like. But those were crashes. Maybe I didn't explain the scanner problem too well. My two main peripherals apart from the internet router...I suppose are the printer and the scanner. After switch on the printer is always ready when I have to print something. The scanner is used less frequently, say once a week. But it is always power on and theoretically ready to go. The fluorescent tube logic keeps the lamp off until called to scan. Because of that I have to wait a couple of seconds before scanning. All that is normal and acceptable. What is odd, ( maybe 1 session in 10 ) the usb port that goes to the scanner isn't found and yet physically unplugging and replugging the cable causes the scanner to move the reading head carriage briefly and audibly , very strange. But thanks anyway. Bye Fred madrid

Muy estimado guapo:- Thanks for tip, though I am not on a LAN, just an ADSL internet net connection Yes, I get other errors logged:- for example some recent (this month)past crashes, an Ad-aware update and a web page that SeaMonkey didn't like. But those were crashes. Maybe I didn't explain the scanner problem too well. My two main peripherals apart from the internet router...I suppose are the printer and the scanner. After switch on the printer is always ready when I have to print something. The scanner is used less frequently, say once a week. But it is always power on and theoretically ready to go. The fluorescent tube logic keeps the lamp off until called to scan. Because of that I have to wait a couple of seconds before scanning. All that is normal and acceptable. What is odd, ( maybe 1 session in 10 ) the usb port that goes to the scanner isn't found and yet physically unplugging and replugging the cable causes the scanner to move the reading head carriage briefly and audibly , very strange. But thanks anyway. Bye Fred madrid

Both your USB connected scanner, and your printer, if it is USB connected, require more power from the USB port than most USB connected devices do. You may need to use a different USB port, or you may have an IRQ sharing problem. See response 3 in this: http://www.computing.net/answers/wi... Also check the USB port you plug into, and the connectors on the ends of the USB cord - to see whether the connection of the USB plug in the USB port is loose, - and make sure the plastic blocking plug is there and is not loose. There are USB 1.x rated USB cables and USB 2.0 rated USB cables - that rating may be seen on the cable itself or on the end connectors. Usually a USB 1.x rated cable will work for a USB 2.0 device, but if you still have problems and nothing else seems to be wrong, try a USB 2.0 rated cable.

You explained the problem very well. I understood the what you said. The event viewer is not just for LANs only. It includes device errors too. Maybe tubesandwires is on the right track.

Dear All, My computer is relatively new with only USB2 ports. Now I know that weird and wonderful things can happen with cables, be they wrong terminations or damaged. Finally as my cables don't have any markings to indicate if they are for USB1.1 or 2 then I did this. To eliminate, extrapolating from your advice ( all of you) I swapped the cables between the various USB driven things I have to see if they would stop working when connected to the scanner USB cable. These other units are:- Joystick for X-plane MP4 player Printer I started the PC several times but no errors appeared when used with any of the above. So thank you all for the time and help. But my gut feeling is that maybe there is something unusual in the 1670 scanner software and it is a bit cranky. Why do I say this? Well before I discovered the 'pull out the cable and reinsert' trick I did the logical thing and reinstalled from the software installation disk. My Epson installation disk has a lot of other programs like acrobat 4 and others from that bygone era. These are installed if you choose the automatic installation option. The problem then is stopping them over-writing the good 2008 versions. The advanced user 'manual selection' option, (just the scanner), doesn't work until you have weeded out all the bits of the previous installation. So as I said, I'm not a power scanner user, just scan now and then. I feel we can kill this quirky thing off and do more productive things. A million thanks to you all and let's move on Bye Fred Madrid