[Chris_G]

A friend of mine gave me his PLW 300 without any disks or manual... I'm not sure if it even works (power light comes on but amber paper light does not when I remove the paper tray)... I've installed the LaserWriter 300/LS extension and picked it in the chooser... but nothing happens. When I print I get the message "There is a problem with the printer. Check to make sure that you have a printer directly connected to this Macintosh" (I do) "..., that it is connected to the port you want to use" (it is) "..., and that the printer is turned on." (I assume a green light means its turned on). Am I missing something? Any help would be appreciated. BTW, the printer is hooked up to a PowerCenter Pro, so its not a USB to serial issue, and I've tried two different serial cables, both of which work with my Stylewriter 1200 (Apple TIL tells me that botht the Stylewriter and PLW 300 use the same serial cable). Thanks in advance.

Chris

You've neglected to mention which OS you're running. The Personal Laserwriter is now "ancient" - you should know that the PLW 300 is not even a true PostScript printer. I suspect that you may have to use OS 8 (perhaps up to 8.5.1) to get the printer to work.
If you have an appropriate extension, from an earlier OS, there's a /chance/ that it'll work with OS 9... but I'd be surprised. Sorry I can't be more helpful, but I don't think Apple supports (i.e. in the newer OS's) this printer any more.

This might be worth a try ...

I've had a 300 for years, and have noticed one glitch with it. If I get a message like this (which has happened when I've changed how things are set up in my office, for example) I pull out the printer power cord at the printer end (not at the wall outlet) and plug it back in again - with the computer running, that is.

Strange-sounding, I know, but it's happened more than once ...

Mike McHugh

PS - I'm running under OS9, so that's not an issue.

Mike

Originally posted by dave_j:
You've neglected to mention which OS you're running. The Personal Laserwriter is now "ancient" - you should know that the PLW 300 is not even a true PostScript printer. I suspect that you may have to use OS 8 (perhaps up to 8.5.1) to get the printer to work...

The extension may be ancient, but it definitely works with OS9, and I am pretty sure it is on the OS9 installer CD. I suggest custom installing the driver from the OS9 disk.

I had the same problem, try turning on Virtual Memory. That should do it!

[Chris_G]

Thanks guys for all your help... turning on virtual memory actually worked! Now the question is why I need virtual memory to run this printer... I have more than enough real memory (160 MB)... would it help to bump up the memory allocation to the print monitor? Any suggestions as to how to print without virtual memory? I hate eating up 161 MB of hard drive space unless its necessary... would RamDoubler be an option? Thanks again for your help (BTW I'm running 8.6).

Chris

You didn't say if you upgraded your PowerTower to a G3 or not, but the PLW300 seems to have problems with high speed G3 processors. I have a beige G3 that prints if the processor is set to the factory 266Mhz, but I get the same message as you if I set it to 400Mhz. Virtual memory is a work-around, but so is anything that will slow down or disable the G3 cache. I use the PowerLogix software, which is a free download, to disable the cache without restarting, print, then enable the cache. Pain in butt, but I don't print that often. This has been discussed a couple of times over at www.xlr8yourmac.com. Good Luck!

[Chris_G]

Thanks Bannon:

I do have an upgraded PCP (390 MHz G3), and disabling the cache prior to printing works also. It is a pain, but still a better solution than virtual memory... at least for me.

Cheers!
Chris