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| Thread ID: 24463 | 2002-09-11 23:30:00 | I think my HP1200 LaserJet is possessed!! | Billy T (70) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 78646 | 2002-09-11 23:30:00 | Hi Team I have a couple of niggling and irritating problems with my HP1200 laserjet printer. Firstly, when I pack up for the night, shut down and turn off my computer, the printer waits until I have turned off the lights and headed upstairs then starts printing. Usually it will print just one page which is blank except for two little right angle thingies (alt 0172 from system character map) in the top left corner of the page. Sometimes it will print two pages, in which case the second page will have four characters printed, but different to the first page. Then it will go to sleep. Very occasionally it gets really hyper and starts non stop printing until the paper tray is empty, which is a real bugger if it was full of letterhead and I don't hear it start. Note that all of this happens with the computer off. It appears to be caching some kind of instruction but where do I start? Is it possessed ]:) Do I need an exorcist ?:| or should I stuff it full of garlic then hammer a stake through the toner cartridge :| Secondly, once in a while it refuses to print and bringing up the printer status box on screen shows the document sitting there but no action. It appears to be a frozen driver type of issue because the entry cannot be deleted or purged. Closing all programs leaving just the normal windows desktop some times clears it and printing will proceed as normal (after I re-open the document and select print of course). Other times a reboot is needed. The first problem is the one that causes most grief because of paper wastage and the effect on my nerves hearing a disconnected printer start up of its own volition. Running on Old Faithful with Win98 and is shared on my network but no other computers are on at the time. Funny really, I've just noticed that my problems are a mirror image: prints without a computer when I don't want it to, and won't print with a computer when I do want it to. X-( Could it be something I've said ?:| Cheers Billy 8-{) :D Oh yes, nearly forgot, it also burps occasionally during the day which is also quite disconcerting. It sounds like some sort ot mechanical reset similar to an inkject carriage adjustment. Makes me jump every time it happens. Susan, can you please review my meds? Maybe you should up the dosages. :p |
Billy T (70) | ||
| 78647 | 2002-09-12 00:06:00 | Is the printer networked via a print server, or parallel port connected? If the parallel port is used, is the printer cable IEEE 1284 compliant? Wonder if it gets glitched in the shutdown process and also when printing. I have seen some odd things with non compliant cables, particularly with the higher clock speeds computers now use. |
godfather (25) | ||
| 78648 | 2002-09-12 00:49:00 | Hi God Answers: 1) No server, it is parallel port connected to Old Faithful. 2) Re IEEE 1284 compliance, I don't know but it is a recently purchased cable that does all the bi-directional thingies and allows printer/scanner coupling etc. It shares with my Scanjet 5100C (which is off when the printing occurs as I have a master power switch that turns off all computer accessories except my inkjet and laser printers). Cheers Billy 8-{) |
Billy T (70) | ||
| 78649 | 2002-09-12 00:58:00 | All cables are not created equal. I would suggest that you beg borrow or steal 2 compliant cables, as this now mirrors the case I had. As the scanner is in the loop, the cable length becomes an issue with non compliant cables. In the case I was involved with it needed both the cable to the scanner, and from scanner to printer replacing. Really strange things were happening to the printer, and that cured it. Possibly you would get away with it if the scanner was not in circuit? Another alternative is a cheap ethernet print server and network the laser (thats what I do here with a 2100 laser) |
godfather (25) | ||
| 78650 | 2002-09-12 02:40:00 | Believe it or not but your experience is not unusual See . dustbroom . net/sketches/upd/arclight/archive/000075 . shtml" target="_blank">www . dustbroom . net "When good electronics go bad - I swear my printer is possessed . " . arakay . net/me/demons . html" target="_blank">www . arakay . net "The Printer Demon: The first of all the demons I've encountered . . . *nostalgic sniffle* I would say what it possessed . . . but I think you can figure that out . I hope . Anyway, it tried to kill Bery and I once, when we were working on a project in seventh grade" |
nzStan (440) | ||
| 78651 | 2002-09-12 02:40:00 | Hi God Networking via a server will come soon, when Old Faithful gets put out to pasture. (Sorry, had to whisper there, the old girl doesn't know of my plans for her retirement) Now, I know you are omniscient and all that, as proven by your hit rate on strange and ephemeral faults, but can you explain to me why or how a cable type or length could affect a printer and cause it to spit out pages when all associated devices are completely powered down ?:| Unless of course you are addressing only the print failures, in which case I can see that you could have a point. However, I only buy cables from Pudney & Lee, and I have no shonky or cheap n' nasty products in use. I also buy short cables for multiple hook-ups to keep the net-length to a minimum, so unless somebody can point me to a source for guaranteed IEEE 1284-compliant printer cables I am reluctant to go out and buy any more. Cheers Billy 8-{) :D |
Billy T (70) | ||
| 78652 | 2002-09-12 03:37:00 | My thoughts on that would be that the glitches (cross talk?) that *might* occur at power-down could be buffered in the printer, the printing could be the result of a time-out process within the printer? Only clutching at crucifixes, admittedly |
godfather (25) | ||
| 78653 | 2002-09-12 05:15:00 | Well I dunno ?:| If you clutched at your crucifix real hard God, do you think you could convince me that random glitches could produce the same ASCII characters every time? (Alt 0172) . I go with the time-out for the printer theory though, so how are your water wings feeling today? Would you like to deliver a theological dissertation on: "The ecumenical significance of random glitches on non-IEEE1284 parallel cables in the presence of contradicting power influences in conjuction with pseudo-random ASCII character generation" . It's a thought, if you haven't yet decided a subject for your Ph . D . Cheers Billy 8-{) ]:) |
Billy T (70) | ||
| 78654 | 2002-09-12 06:26:00 | Nay, I think I'll leave your meds dosage alone Billy, it seems to be Just Right . You have to admit that you're long overdue for PC problems . Your printer is just doing me a favour and forcing you to provide me with MY medicine - it knows that no one comes close to Billy when it comes to entertaining PF1 with PC or printer hiccups . ;-) :D |
Susan B (19) | ||
| 78655 | 2002-09-12 06:32:00 | I suppose that the scanner is first in the chain, and uses a DB25-DB25 cable from the CPU. Is that cable an IEEE 1284 one? It's an odd one ... I once worked with a papertape punch which made a lot of noise (punching all nine holes at 110 cps) when the CPU went down ... the drivers were not open collector, and went TTL low when the power went off them. The punch logic was active-low. :-( But I guess that most of the logic levels on modern interfaces would be pretty indeterminate when the power is off ... they might use TTL levels, but it's not TTL hardware. That could mean that the lines are floating at one end, and although the 1284 cables are twisted pairs the drive and recievers are unbalanced so they could be good at picking up noise. But noise which is that consistent ... ? That symbol is the "not" symbol, I think. It's the printer saying "NOT NOT", it's someone else's fault that paper is being wasted. ]:) |
Graham L (2) | ||
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