Officejet 7130xi Printer Queue Stops: Can not print without rebooting (now not at all)

[Cyndi]

I own an Officejet 7130xi which is connected via USB to a Mac G4 running Tiger (OS 10.4.11).  It's given me problems over the years but they've mostly been fixable.  When I had 10.2, I would often have the printer not "see" the connection and run the striped line in the queue box indefinately.  Running another program that accessed the OJ (scanning, ink levels) almost always fixed it.

[Aside: with 10.2, I installed a new slave HD, everything still worked.  Then the master HD died and the OJ functions completely ceased, except for computer independent ones like copying.  Then I installed OS10.4 and got the problems I have now, which have continued even after fixing the master HD, something that required another driver reinstall...I've done 4 or so of those recently.]

Running OS10.4, I had to reinstall the printer drivers to a compatible one.  It worked on and off and then not at all.  I managed to get it working through some combination of things, including using Image Zone to install a software update.

But the printer never worked all the time.  I have to reboot the computer to print anything.  Otherwise, it just sits in the queue spinning its wheels.  Either it can't find the printer or it is processing indefinately.  Then it does a stop jobs by itself.  In some cases, I would get the first inch or so of the document to print out before it all timed out and did a stop jobs.  Restarting the job started the process from scratch, which meant no printout.

When I do setup on the printer, it knows it is a 7100 series and so forth but says "location unknown."  It can not find the scanner either and I can't get the fax or the card reader to work properly.  If I ask for the ink levels I get that display no problem.

Rebooting the computer always worked and everything in the print queue would get printed and I could send faxes or read cards (not sure about the scanner).  Incoming faxes mostly work.  Until today...now I can't get it to print at all.  Well, it did that inch thing.  I can get ink levels fine but any setup I try to do gives me an error that it can't find the device.

The only article/post I can find that is close to addressing this is http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00843712&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&lang=en&product=91469 but it's for Windows only.  I did try the USB cord removal/replugging but it didn't help.

This is honestly driving me nuts, even though I had resigned myself to loading the print queue then rebooting to print (at least 10.4 boots fast).  Now I can't get anything.  I bought this pricey machine so I could scan, fax, read camera cards, and print at will.  There is obviously some software glitch and I'm willing to work with it, but I don't know where to go next.  I know HP (like all the other computer companies) doesn't support anything that is "too old" even though it should work just fine for years.  I am not willing to buy a new machine because it's in the company business model.  I'm happy with my Officejet when it works and I want to fix it.

Thanks for any ideas,

Cyndi