Printer is MAKING ME CUCKOO FOR COCOA PUFFS

Ever since I downgraded to 10.4 from 10.3.9, my printer has been acting funny. My printer is the HP Deskjet 970 CSe. The drivers are supposed to be built in to Mac OS 10.4, but they are far less featured than the real HP drivers I had back in 10.3.9. I don't even have the option to check ink levels or clean the printer heads like I did in 10.3.9. I have to fight to get my printer to even print because it keeps stopping jobs for NO REASON WHATSOEVER. I am truly fighting with the computer to print anything, and I am losing because Mac OS 10.4 hates usefulness.

I have tried downloading the latest HP drivers from HP's web site, but they seem the same... just as featureless and just as buggy. Are they trying to force me into buying a new printer? I don't want a new printer, this one works fine, it is the Mac OS which is broken. I am on a Mac Pro, so upgrading back to 10.3.9 is not an option, unfortunately.

Apple always seem to provide rudimentary printer support and then leave it to the manufacturer to produce a full-featured one - Windows is basically the same.

HP's drivers are rubbish, my PSC1110 ones were too and didn't even support the scanner, with no sign of an update from them. But I did find an OSX driver package on the web with a pretty good driver included. I don't remember the name or where I got it, sadly, but if you do some searching around you might find it. If I remember it I'll post details.

Edit: Found it - take a look here. It was a bit fiddly to set up, but I got it working. If it has a drive for HP Deskjet 9xx then you should be okay.

Thanks! Will this override the currently installed drivers?

I don't think so, no, it's additional. My PSC1110 just appears as a printer. It's called "PSC1100 series," and Kind is "HP PSC1110 Foomatic/hpijs."