HP PSC 1610 connection

[McGuffin]

had to help someone to get an old 1610 printer to work because it stopped doing so.

the laptop they use does not list any HP printers (connected by cable) but also refuses to find one to connect.

when i manually connect it with hp 1600 series drivers and try to give it a default name, it says the printer with that name is already existing.

i deleted all possible drivers / uninstalled every stupid app that might interfere and all the HP apps (or just all the dumb af internet free garbage).

i downloaded the HP 1610 all in one drivers (which i also used to install the same printer about 5 years ago or so) but now it spits an error almost at the finish every time and cant install the driver.

the printer itself is OK (prints own test pages and scans to laptop w/o probs), its 100% laptop issue.

i also tried to stop the printer services and everything related to task manager lol

the following clues i got are:

-when they started it today, it wanted to print alot of unprinted stuff because they turned it off and left it off for quite a while (when i delete apps and drivers it tries to clear printing que and shut down the printer, even when its disconnected) mid print last time

-drivers could probably not be deleted from the core folders during uninstall (which ive no clue about)

-during manual installation, im choosing the wrong port (the default choise is LPT1)
i remember, when i was installing printers for everyone at work, we had similar problems with an extreme old printer and i could swear some guy wrote as a solution for that to choose another port, but i also might be remembering it wrong.

-after uninstalling everything, the laptops stopped pinging when i pull or put in the laptop USB cable

if someone smarter or more experienced has a clue for me, i would be grateful

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Try a different USB cable, that one might be faulty.
What OS are you using?

[McGuffin]

its w10

the cable is fine, as said, it scans stuff fine to PC on its own