HP Officejet V40 prints slooooooooooooow!!!

[Racer7201]

I bought the above printer a few months back and its been on 2 different computers with different OS's (98SE and XP Pro) and different usb ports and cable. After initial installation on either computer with latest drivers from HP the printer prints fast. Usually within about 2-3 weeks, it will just slow down to a crawl, taking about 5 minutes to print one black text page. The only cure is to uninstall it and reinstall. I've done this about 10 times now and i'm about ready to buy something else. HP tech support hasn't come up with any ideas that have worked. I've defragged, moved the swap file to a different hdd, cleared out the temp folder and done everything in their tech support tips and the only fix is uninstall/reinstall. I'm at a loss of anything else to do. Anyone???
Jerry

Systems: Win98SE, Epox 8k3a+, xp1600, 256m Samsung pc2700, Hercules 8500
XP Pro, Asus P4S533, 1.8a, 256m Mushkin pc3200, Hercules 8500

 

[Zim Hosein]

Just a shot in the dark, but have you tried running a virus scan on your rig? Also, during these 2-3 weeks that you notice the slowdown, do you change anything such as hardware/software. Finally, are you the only person who uses your rig? I'm just thinking off the top of my head because I always owned HP printers & officejets and this is just weird

 

[Racer7201]

I run virus scans about once a week. There are times the computer may not be turned on for a couple days. No hardware changes. And i'm the only one using them. I got pretty much the same comment from HP support---weird. When it acts up like that, i can scan or copy and it runs like it should, just slow printing from the computer. Its definitely a weird problem because it happens on 2 different computers with different OS's. Since its not on our primary computer and doesn't get used a lot, i guess i'll just keep uninstalling/reinstalling when it starts acting up.
JF