Here’s a description of my problem.

I have had an HP LaserJet 6L printer hooked up to my Sony Viao computer (running on Windows 98) for almost 10 years and it’s worked fine.

However when I started my computer on Friday night and tried to print a Word 97 or Excel document, I got an error message saying something to the effect that "An error occurred when printing to Port LPT1 and a printer time out error has occurred. Windows will retry in 45 seconds..........”.

I’ve tried re-installing the printer driver (using both the disk that came with the printer and also automatic installation), however the problem reoccurs.

I also have plenty of space on my hard drive which has been "defragged and all of my Windows based program run OK except that the computer "Freezes" when I try to print.

The printer will correctly print a test page, but it does not respond to any documents from my Windows programs such as the ones in my Office 97 package and I have to use the Task Manager to clear the freeze up.

What is a “printer time out error” and how can I correct it -or is something else wrong like a problem in the BIOS?

California Dolphin

Not to be rude, but those problems do occur on "younger" equipment all the time. When you can't reload the print driver with different results, it's usually time to replace it. That's been my experience.

However, in your case, since you're running a computer on Win 98, that must make your computer at least 7 years old. So, it could be a case of either-or, which I would hesitate greatly on replacing your computer so quickly.

I had to recently replace my printer after it died an honorable death at 5 years of age. I had the same timeout error pop up over and over. It was all solved with a new printer, however. You have my best wishes to you on this one, Dolphin!

Have you tried going into Control Panel>Printers nad making sure that the HP is the default printer? I know that's really basic, but sometimes people forget simple solutions like that. Next step would be just to call Sony or HP technical support and describe your problem, it shouldn't take much time or expense with their support to solve the problem.