Lab P-6 Troubleshooting Scenarios

Read “How to Troubleshoot Printer Problems” and answer the questions below with solutions from the text.

Problem	Solution
Darth calls you and tells you his printer was working, the cat walked on it and now it’s not printing any more. It is plugged in and turned on. You ask him to describe the front panel and he says that there are no lights. What should he do?
Stormtrooper Potatohead just installed a new print cartridge in his old inkjet printer that he inherited from this aunt. Now nothing shows up at all on the page. It’s one of those “all in one” catridges and he’s never installed one before. You tell him to make sure it’s seated correctly. It is. What gives?
Dilbert installed a new USB printer. The printer did not come with a USB cable, but rather than buy a new cable he decided to use the old one that he had from an old scanner. Everything appears to work correctly on the printer, except the computer can’t see it.
Fishy’s printer was working fine, but now there is a red light on the panel and he doesn’t know what that means. What would you advise him to do?
Goofy has a printer that had a paper jam. He tried to clear the jam but ended up ripping the paper in the process. Now the printer just blinks a red light and won’t print. He’s tried turning it off and on a number of times and it still won’t print. He can see it on the computer, can see all the print jobs he sent it, but nothing is coming out. It just flashes. What should he check?
Mickey has a really old dot-matrix printer. Suddenly the printer is still acting like it’s printing, but nothing is showing up on the page. If he prints on multi-page forms, the pages underneath the first page print fine through with carbon, and the text is what it should be. Nothing is on the first page, although he can see the imprint of the letters. What should he look for first?