Please Help - Can't start my Wireless Laptop without Scanner

[minnie]

It seems I have to PLUG in my stupid Scanner first before my Wireless Laptop will work. I get to log on and that's about it. It just RUNS ...no where.

More Info:

it's a serial port. After logging on, it tries to run and ends up using all the cpu usage and runs continually like it doesn't know what to do. I am tempted to deinstall the scanner but it's older than dirt and it took me forever to get it set up since the company is no longer around, etc.

Note that I bought a Lexmark printer (appears to be a BIG mistake) that was plugged into the scanner. I thought that was the problem, so I deinstalled that for now and unplugged it from the scanner. Could that still be a factor in this even though it's not even on or plugged into the scanner any longer? I really want to be able to reinstall the printer but have the ability to not plug that into the laptop when I want to go wireless.

I don't remember having problems like this before having to purchase the stupid printer. I had an older Lexmark that didn't give me any problems until it croaked one day.

Thanks so much for ANY ASSISTANCE. I was up all night with this.

[NDogg]

Minnie,
An easy solution would be after you log in without the scanner connected, and it starts using all the CPU time, go into the Task Manager, find the process that is using all the CPU time and kill that process. It should let you kill the process unless it is a vital process, it will always pop up with a warning telling you that it may affect the way the computer performs, but it's okay. That way you should be able to kill the process if you are going wireless.