Printer stops printing if I try to do something else

About a year ago I upgraded my two year old system to
Windows XP Home edition and have been having printer
problems ever since. I downloaded and installed the
latest bios and all drivers for all the hardware. I was
using an HP 932 printer connected through a USB port. I
also have an HP scanner and a SanDisk memory card reader
connected through the USB that work fine. The problem I'm
having is that when I print something, if I try to do
anything else like focusing on another window or calling
up another application the print job hangs up and then
the print queue shows that a print error has occurred. If
I cancel the print job it just stays in the queue. The
only way I can get the error to go auay is to cancel the
job then reboot. I finally gave up on getting the HP
printer to work properly and last week bought a Lexmark
X125 hoping that the problem would go away but it is
exhibiting the same problems as the HP. I have tried
reinstalling all the associated drivers for the USB and
the printer. I've also played with turning off the
spooler and printing directly to the H/W. Any
suggestions would be appreciated.

Suggests either corrupted drivers or more likely an insufficient PSU (power
supply unit) in the PC.

What wattage is your PSU?
--
Cari (MS-MVP Windows Client - Printing, Imaging & Hardware)
www.coribright.com

"Gordon" wrote in message
...
About a year ago I upgraded my two year old system to
Windows XP Home edition and have been having printer
problems ever since. I downloaded and installed the
latest bios and all drivers for all the hardware. I was
using an HP 932 printer connected through a USB port. I
also have an HP scanner and a SanDisk memory card reader
connected through the USB that work fine. The problem I'm
having is that when I print something, if I try to do
anything else like focusing on another window or calling
up another application the print job hangs up and then
the print queue shows that a print error has occurred. If
I cancel the print job it just stays in the queue. The
only way I can get the error to go auay is to cancel the
job then reboot. I finally gave up on getting the HP
printer to work properly and last week bought a Lexmark
X125 hoping that the problem would go away but it is
exhibiting the same problems as the HP. I have tried
reinstalling all the associated drivers for the USB and
the printer. I've also played with turning off the
spooler and printing directly to the H/W. Any
suggestions would be appreciated.