I'm brand new to this site so I have to learn how to do the rating stuff.

Is it possible to rate each thread?

I've been coming to this site for years and could never even take a look at old answers.

I didn't even realize I was already signed up until I tried to sign up about 4 weeks ago.

I bought this recent printer used from someone at Ebay for about $25 together with shipping. I bought it because it's just like the one that broke. The one that broke was always on orange light. I've had that one for several years. Now that I know that the colors have meaning, I notice that to me the orange light mean it was ready.

This printer's orange light always stays on if there is no paper in the paper tray. Since these printers have a defect in that you can only use one sheet of paper at a time, I never keep any paper in the paper tray. So the orange light is always staring at me. After many years of the orange light staring at me, to me it is normal (the ready light).


After you posted information about the manual and learned that the lights had meaning, I realized the orange light was an error light and not a ready light. HOORAY FOR YOU!!

I have never seen a manual for this printer. I learn from intuition. I think machines talk to us. We just have to learn to listen and understand what they are saying to us.

I learned how to use the printer and how to do a test page, etc without reading a manual. Sort of how kids learn nowadays.

THANKS FOR TEACHING ME HOW TO USE AND READ A MANUAL. I DOWNLOADED IT INTO MY COMPUTER.

YOUR ATTENTION TO DETAIL IS WHAT HELPED ME!!

OK. Now I'm going to go figure out how to do the ratings part. THANKS A MILLION!

I had no clue I had the opportunity to rate the answers at this site.

It looks like it won't let me go back and rate each of the threads.

It says, you must spread some reputation around

You can rate each post.

There is a paper path switch on this printer. There may not be a defect at all.

There were links to two manuals. The service and owners.

Since attempting to fix this current printer, I learned that they have a defect--they have a tendency to feed more than one sheet at a time. My former printer did that and this one does the same thing. You cannot put more than one sheet of paper in the paper tray because it will feed both of them through EVERY TIME. A stack of paper does me no good anyway because I normally print on both sides of the paper. It looks like free kits were available at one time to fix this defect. I think they are still available but not free. I think it is the rollers that is the problem.



I have had trouble looking at the second manual. I will have to keep trying. They have an icon that allows it to be copied directly to the hard drive but it seems like it's either stuck or it's too slow. I don't know which. I'm going to go try it again and just leave my computer on to see if it will download it to my computer.

I am going to keep going back to see if I can rate each of the threads. Thanks for letting me know I can do this.

Paper has a curl and might even be labeled "print this side first". Look carefully on the wrapper. So, it matters.

Static and humidity can affect paper performance too.

There might be a part called a "paper separator". I didn't re-read the service manual.

Stacks are still OK, because there is something called manual duplexing where you check the right options and print on side A odd pages and then the driver tells you to insert the stack in the paper tray upside down and the driver prints side B the even pages.

If your loading the .pdf document within your browser after it loads Adobe has an option to "Save a copy". Not having enough real memory in your computer could compromise the ability to load the document.

This entire discussion is a thread. Each comment is a post. You may only be able to comment once per poster per thread and that's why your being told to spread it around.

After having such a difficult time downloading the service manual, I finally had success.

I just tried it again and this time it only took a split second to copy to my desktop.

Oh, manual duplexing. Never heard of it. Wow, I have been working myself to death printing one page at a time so I can turn the paper over. LOL

The service manual is coming in handy as the printer is making a bit too much noise when the paper is rolling through. I will have to learn how to clean them.

Thanks again for all of your help. I have learned so much.

I think because I am new here, the system doesn't allow me to rate each of the threads. I will keep trying.

Now that this website lets me come here, I will be around more often.

Thanks again. Have a good night.

See this thread about duplexing. It gets off on the wrong foot too:

https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/word-p...even+odd+pages

Just on the paper handling, you can get replacement pickup rollers and separation pads. That's what you need to get the paper feeding through properly again. You can try cleaning them off as they can get dry and full of paper dust.

Thanks KeepItSimple and StuMegu

It looks like I didn't get anymore messages in my e-mail box notifying me that I had more messages here.

Unfortunately, I'm not good at mechanical things. I'm good at taking them apart but then I can't put them back together again.

I've lived with a defective printer for a lot of years, I guess I can live with one for a few more days.

But if there is a printer you guys can recommend that doesn't need to be repaired that I can use duplexing on, please let me know.

I think it's time to get a printer that can I can do duplexing on. I've lived with a defective printer for too long. I only spent $25 on this current printer maybe I can donate it to someone.

Duplexing is not going to be cheap. If you can get an HP 1320 or 2105, both are lasers with buillt in duplexing. You can also add a duplexing adapter ($80) to several of HP's inkjet printers.

And you still need more RAM

In my experience, the printers that sell for the cheapest price are usually expensive to run. How much you spend on a printer should be determined by the amount of printing you are going to do as a more expensive printer can save money in the operating costs.

I recently bought a Kyocera laser printer for around £600 that, due to high usage, will be cheaper to run than a £100 laser printer. Always look at the consumables cost and how many copies you get from them.

As for a printer that doesn't need to be repaired, your best option is to buy one new and get a warranty. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for. If you get any second hand devices they are likely to break down sooner and you have much less or no warranty on the unit.

Dana,

I cannot think of any reason why the HP won't work with XP. I've run dozens of HP Drivers on my XP system without any major problems.

If you would be kind enough to give me a couple of days, I'll weed through the previous posts and see I can up with any thing.

Don

Recommendation HP P2015dn:

pcRUSH.com - Product Specification for Item# 86546

This is the same printer I got for essentially the same price. Still waiting for one of the rebates. The "d" means duplex. The "n" means network. It's USB and Ethernet.
Postscript level 3 and PCL 6.

Shipping? And maybe $20 for extra printer RAM. Printer cartridges come in a 3K pages and 6K pages at ~$80/3000 pages. And, of course, a USB or Ethernet cable.

Pretend your old printer is a hands-on course on how to repair printers. Try to fix it. Learn.

Hello KeepItSimple

Don't you think that's a bit much of a printer for home use?
I guess with that price, it isn't Most places sell those for over $500.

HP has it for the same price with free shipping. I will most likely get one of these. Sounds great!!

I am thinking about taking the broken printer apart and removing the sensor. The newly acquired printer's sensor maybe warped.


Keep your fingers crossed that I can manage to put it back together again once I take it apart.

The newly acquired printer is way too unreliable. That piece of tape is not keeping the sensor in place permanently. It is just a guessing game trying to get it in just the right position each time I want to print something.

THANKS FOR THE EXCELLENT RECOMMENDATION!!

(P.S. the software here will not let me rate any of your answers, sorry )

I made a mistake. PCRush.com has the best price for the HP 2015DN. It's $100.00 more at hp.com.

I cannot find any warranty information on the printer. Do you know if HP offers any warranty on it?

1 year. All you need to know:
Search HP US - Search results for 'p2015dn'

Dana,

The price in this instance is driven by the additional cost of the paper handling features.

I still suggest that you hold off a bit, just to give me a chance here. I'd like a shot at the HP Problem you are having.

First off, I'd like to know your how the printer is connected to the PC? Second, does the printer run a stand-alone print test? From the Printer's Properties screen, can you print the test page?

Please do a Start >> Run >> MS DOS. From the command prompt type "Echo LPT1 This is a test. 0x0A 0x0BPage One0x0C" ,<enter>

No Quotes. "0xZZ" means Hexicidemal. So from the keyboard you would type <ALT> 10 This is the Line return command. The x0B = <ALT> 11 = Line Feed and the 0x0C = <ALT>12 = the Page Eject Command.

Lpt1 is the address of the printer and I'm assuming the printer is connected via the parallel port for this test. If your printer is connected differently, get a parallel cable and plug the printer to the parallel port this way we can also isolate the ports as the source of the problem.

donf:

Let me re-gurgitate this thread for you a bit. The printer is a parallel port only printer. It's 10 years old. She duplexes extensively and wasn't aware of manual duplexing. She has another broken one just like it with other unidentified problems. She thought the error light was the ready light and never had a manual.

It has a physical problem with a sensor. Ether cartridge installed or door closed. I don't know which. She has to tape it in place to operate the printer. This likely occurred because the printer was shipped from an eBay seller with the cartridge installed.Maybe Dana can identify the p/n in the service manual.

It also has a physical problem with page separation, so she at least needs the sensor or actuator, page pickup roller and the page separation gizmo to fix it.

This thread meanders a lot.

KISS

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KeepItSimpleStupid

donf:

Let me regurgitate this thread for you a bit. The printer is a parallel port only printer. It's 10 years old. She duplexes extensively and wasn't aware of manual duplexing. She has another broken one just like it with other unidentified problems. She thought the error light was the ready light and never had a manual.

It has a physical problem with a sensor. Ether cartridge installed or door closed. I don't know which. She has to tape it in place to operate the printer. This likely occurred because the printer was shipped from an ebay seller with the cartridge installed.Maybe Dana can identify the p/n in the service manual.

It also has a physical problem with page separation, so she at least needs the sensor or actuator, page pickup roller and the page separation gizmo to fix it.

This thread meanders a lot.

KISS

---

KISS - Good afternoon - How are things along your coastline today? Thanks for the distillation of this thread.

We can cheat around the reporting of the error by putting a parallel break-out box on the line and then crippling the PE line from communicating to the PC but that would only be a band aid until newer parts could be ordered.

For a 10 year old printer, I would also agree with you to replace the printer. The upside would be a better code build on the newer printer. Factory tested parts in the box and better than average packing.

As to manual over automatic, automatic works for me. As to her question about printers, I'd suggest Lexmark's mid-range lasers. But I'm extremely biased towards Lexmark.

Currently, I have an old 2455 laser with automatic duplexing, hard drive, flash ram and network nic that is on loan to a friend. Two all in one (8350) and one small ink jet in a closet

Don,
Lexmark Retiree

Donf:
Coast is gorgeous. Yesterday I re-built a carb on a snowblower. The diaphram fuel valve was leaking. Then the pull-start broke. I don't fix these. It did start and ran rough until I was fiddleing with the mixture.

Can't do the parallel breakout trick because the printer won't to a self-test at times because of the physical problem.

We generally agree, which is cool. One trouble-shooter to another.

Dana:
Can you identify the part that's broken in the service manual with a page and call-out number? The call-out number is the number in the circle.

You can possibly rob that part from your other printer. The paper separator and pick-up rollers have to be new.

As for taking things apart. HP's instructions are really good. Lay things out on a table and use large pieces of paper or small cups for the screws and components that you remove. It's also useful to poke them into styrofoam as you remove them. Write the page number on the container that hold the screws for that page. If you use the paper method take them out in a st order leaving lots of room between each item. Note if there are screws longer than the others. Re-assemble in reverse.

Laser printers have maintenance issues. 1) Cleaning, 2) Jams 3) pick-up rollers 3)Paper separator and 5) Fuser

These parts do not last forever and must be replaced periodically. You won't know what a warn pick-up roller looks like until you have a new one to compare too. When they are smooth, they are broken.

The upgrade cycle is usually because of one of these reasons:
The printer technology is obsolete.
I don't have a specific port.
I need networking
I need duplexing.
I need posscript or a particular version of PostScript.
I can't get parts.
Maintenance is getting too expensive.
I need to support Mac's and PC's.
It's too slow.

Hello Donf and KeepItSimple,

I am not receiving e-mail notifications so I just barely saw your posts.


I've had my old printer for a very long time. I don't know if it was new or used. My brother installed it for me.

I have never had any problems with my old printer other than I could only put one sheet of paper on the paper tray at a time (same as the newly acquired one).

The main reason I would need duplexing is when I print out healing (Reiki, homeopathy, etc) manuals from the internet. And sometimes I also like to print out manuals for things I buy at garage sales.

I will need to go through and find the part that I suspect is causing the error light to stay on. Sometimes, I think it is a short in the printer. But at the same time the sensor moves and doesn't stay in place. I wonder if the sensor wasn't already warped before it was mailed to me. It seems to have to be in just the proper position or it senses that the door is opened. It is the "door closed" sensor and not the ink cartridge sensor.


The problems I have with taking things apart and then putting them back together again is that oftentimes I can't put the screws back together in the same way. Especially long screws. Sometimes if things don't line up right, they don't work. People who invented computer hardware were smart to make parts fit in one direction only and to push things in instead of using screws. They included children and women in their hardware development.

I will go take a look at the manual now and see if I can locate the sensor that I suspect is causing the problems, and get back to you shortly.

In the service manual the "door open/cartridge sensor" is discussed on page 5-17 Table 5-1 described as No. PS204



First off, I'd like to know your how the printer is connected to the PC? Second, does the printer run a stand-alone print test? From the Printer's Properties screen, can you print the test page?

I don't know what the name of the cable is that is connected between the cable and the printer. I think it is called a data cable. Both ends have heads that have pins that get pushed in. One side to the printer and the other side to the back of the computer tower. The head that goes into the tower also has screws on the end of head. The part that goes into the printer also has clips that are pressed down.

This is what the cable says on it:
AWM E148000 Style 20276 VW-1 80 (degree symbol) c IEEE 1284 compliant LTK AWM I/II A/B 80 (degree symbol) C 30v FT1


Yes, I can print a test page as long as the sensor is in just the right position. The sensor moves when I open the door or when printing or when the ink cartridge is moved.

A test page prints by hitting the button on the door. A test page also prints by using properties on the printer menu

Click on "Question tools" which is in orange just above the question and select "Subscribe to this question". That will fix notificaton.

I looked up the 3 parts that you appear to need on HP's website and the separation pads and pick-up rollers appear to be re-designed. Substitute parts are shown for the original part numbers. At ~$55 without shipping, $250 for a printer should seem more attractive.

Does your computer have any USB ports?

"IEEE 1284 compliant " Bingo!

The IEEE 1284 specification defines several methods of implementing a high speed parallel port.

HP choose to use the "EPP" method. EPP stands for Enhanced Parallel Port. With this method, the parallel port takes in data and writes it directly to the printer's memory.

Please go to the Windows Help and type in IEEE1284 & EPP. The Windows Help should tell you how to enable the high speed port.

Don

donf:

Bingo! I don't get it. Remember, it won't do a front panel self-test because it has a broken sensor. It wants to be fed manually because of pick-up/separation problems. The port/cable is out of the picture at this time, isn't it?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KeepItSimpleStupid

donf:

Bingo! I don't get it. Remember, it won't do a front panel self-test because it has a broken sensor. It wants to be fed manually because of pick-up/separation problems. The port/cable is out of the picture at this time, isn't it?

---

"Yes, I can print a test page as long as the sensor is in just the right position. The sensor moves when I open the door or when printing or when the ink cartridge is moved.

A test page prints by hitting the button on the door. A test page also prints by using properties on the printer menu"

Bingo wrt the cause of the operating system's inability to talk to the port. The sensor problem needs to be corrected.

I still stand with you on the replacement of the unit.

It looks like something else is wrong with this printer and not the sensor like I had originally thought.

The green "ready" light is on but it won't print. It does print a test page though.

I think this printer was sick before the seller sent it to me.

He said it took him 15 minutes to get it to print. He told me that he had to put 50 - 100 pages in the paper try before he got it to print.

Anyone have any ideas what could be wrong with this printer?

Maybe a short somewhere?

The properties for the printer says "out of paper"

I managed to get it to print again by restarting my computer. I also cleared cookies and temporary files just to make sure it didn't have any excuses not to print.

I never had any problems with my former printer so this can get a bit frustrating at time.
I spend more time trying to figure out how to get it to print than I do printing.

Dana,

Call the supplier of the printer and tell him to pick it up. He gave you a problem child.

I too have two HP LaserJet printers one is a 5L the other a 6L. They are very problematic printers for the XP OS. From the hardware side of easy paper jams, or pulling in too much paper when printing cartridge problems. Software side, the driver can get corrupted easily or stall the printing process. These HP LaserJets major problem is the lack of transferring the pages to the printer to print and stalling the load on the PC if not transferred. Especially in XP. They are great when they work though, you get a lot of sheets with the cartridges. As for now I'm having the refuses to print when told to print but you can print a test page by pressing the test/reset button in front. I'm sure I'll solve the problem soon, I just wanted to add to this discussion.

If you have parallel printer port problems with this printer you can also try buying a Parallel port to USB adapter and use this printer as a usb printer. XP doesn't seem to like the parallel port peripherals on systems these days. Old printers, scanners etc..

System RAM/system memory has no effect on these old printers, you can have a stick of 32mb of the old SDram or a new DDR 512/gig stick. Ram only makes (system) processes faster and rely less on the hard drive for virtual/page/swap memory, the printer will print regardless. The page(s) you want to print get transferred over to the printer's memory to start printing. I don't know where that other poster came up with that information. Misinformation is the worst kind of information.

Scorpwana

Thanks for writing.

I agree with you that the software (possibly XP OS) is definitely contributing to damaging the printer. I have never had any problems with the old one until last December when my brother brought me a new flat screen. I think he had recently upgraded my computer also. Soon afterwards my printer started doing strange things like stalling and printing out an entire page of very large text (from a small part from the page I would send to the printer).

I think the software eventually totally damaged my former printer.

The current printer has been showing some similar signs as the former printer. I suspect that that the software will eventually damage it also. On a couple of occasions, the current printer has also printed out an entire page page containing only a very small part of the document I sent to the printer.

Sometimes, it remembers the last document I sent to the printer when I restart the computer.


It is only a matter of time before it will most likely damage the current printer also.

Thanks again for writing.

Dana,

Absolutely none of the problems described in the above post could be caused by the operating system.

That the printer on board flash might be buggy is true. Look on HP's site and see if there is a flash update for the printer. If there is get it.

As to the driver software, you have two options there also:

First you can get the HP Custom Driver from the HP site or you can use the generic version of the driver that comes with Windows. Even the generic version is written by HP to Microsoft's spec. Microsoft tests it and certifies it.

Extra memory on a printer allows windows to dump more data to the printer faster. Eventually when the data buffers are full, the printer sends a message to the host telling it to stop sending data.

There are three types of data transfers available to the high speed ports. Check your printer and see if it supports the IPP Bi-directional Spec. IPP is a method that allows the host to write directly to the printer's memory. That is the format that HP chose for its printers. Also implicit with any support for bi directionality from the parallel port, Nibble and Byte modes were standard formats that took advantage of the older styled 36 pin Centronics ports.

Then of course there are different schemes to pull data across the parallel port using the Centronics designed port.

The real source of bi-di problems are cheap printer cables. These cables will jumper all of the grounds together and pass one lead over to the host.

When you are trying to pass bi-directional signals over this type of cable, return signals that are meant for specific pins don't get there because it is not a pin to pin connection. You need to make sure you have an IEEE 1284 approved printer cable.

Lastly, the type of data you are sending can litterly put the printer to sleep. If you are using PCL, then there could be a fractured printer code that the printer sees and starts discarding bytes up to a mystery byte count. Once the printer clears that byte count, it magically turns on. While this is easy to find and fix in PCL, PCXL is quite another story.

I'll ask you once again to send me your print file so I can run it against some of the lab tools I used at Lexmark. I can tell you from the captured file if the file is misbehaving or if it is clean.

About two posts up, you describe a situation where the light keeps flashing and the job says printing, but nothing happens. On the driver properties look and see if there is a box you can check or un-check that will allow the printer to print while spooling.

If you would like to take this off-line until we get it to work, send me a private message.

Dana,

Here is the Link to the HP Laserjet User's manual. I'd like you to please review the "Trouble Shooting" section and see if you can match symptons.

bizsupport.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/bpl03394/bpl03394.pdf

Again, I can't tell just how important a print file is in debugging your problem. Also, Please print out a menu settings page for the printer and fax it to me at (757) 490-2350.

Please at least respond to me if you need additional assistance.

Please close and remove this issue. I have received no response from the original poster to several PMs. Or Postings.

I chose the P2055dn because of auto-duplexing and the standard 128MB of RAM. I was initially disappointed by the poor print quality and noise of the printer with the factory default settings. After digging into the clunky, digital-only manual and much trial and error, I created new HP Printing Shortcuts for 1-sided and 2-sided documents with ProRes quality instead of the default FastRes quality, and I set the default Printing Shortcut to be my new 1-sided definition.See Here: HP Officejet Printer