Lab 6-4 Troubleshooting Scenarios
Read “How to Troubleshoot Printer Problems” and answer the questions below with solutions from the text.
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Problem |
Solution |
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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? |
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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? |
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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. |
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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? |
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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? |
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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? |
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HOW TO
TROUBLESHOOT PRINTER PROBLEMS
PRINTER 1. Read the book. I cannot begin to tell you how many
people have brought their printer to my shop with the User Manual and paid my
wife (no computer expert) $32.50 to sit-down, read the book, and fix the printer. Unfortunately, some printer books
aren't worth reading... 2. Check the manufacturer's web site. The problem you are having has most likely
happened before. If the manufacturer has a good web site, you may find
the answer there and save a lot of time, money, and frustration. Go to
our Manufacturer Links page to get there fast. 3. Is it plugged-in? Make sure the printer is plugged into a
live outlet. If it is plugged into a surge protector, make sure it is
on. Try moving it from the surge protector to a known-good wall outlet. 4. Is it on? Ok, you can't print and Windows, etc. says
it can't find the printer. Make sure the darn thing is turned on and
there are no error lights (LEDs) lit. If there
are error lights, refer to the user manual/manufacturer's web site. You
should hear the print mechanism initialize when power is applied and most
printers have at least one light which will be illuminated when it is on. 5. Is it on-line? Most printers have and on-line LED and button or
the equivalent. The computer cannot communicate or send stuff to a
printer that is not on-line; i.e., not connected to the
cable between the printer and computer, and that is what
"on-line" literally means. Again, I have gone to customer
sites, pushed the on-line button, and charged them for my time and travel (I
try to accomplish at least that much on the phone, but some...). 6. Is it beeping at you? Most printers will beep once or twice
during or after initialization. If it beeps more than that or beeps
constantly, the poor thing is either hurt or trying to tell you something is
wrong. Look in the manual or go to the web site to learn what it is
saying. Unfortunately, beep code documentation can be hard to find, the
beep you hear may not listed, or the meaning of the beep is nebulous.
Most, printers will beep when out of paper or out of ink and those are the
most common causes for a printer turning into a road runner. 7. Does it test-print? Most printers have a built-in diagnostics
program which can be very useful for troubleshooting problems and
test-printing without a computer. They are usually initiated by
pressing a button or two while turning on the printer. Check your user
manual. If the printer test-prints OK, you have probably eliminated the
mechanical print mechanism as the problem. 8. Does it have ink or toner? Is the Ink cartridge full, ribbon
installed correctly, or laser cartridge full? An ink jet printer may
have a black and a color cartridge. Check both of
them or at least set the printer to use a cartridge with ink in
it. You can usually extend the life of a laser cartridge long enough to
order a new one by removing the cartridge and gently shaking it side-to-side
to redistribute the tone. Sometimes you can get a ribbon going
temporally by removing from the printer and manually advancing the ribbon
past a worn spot by turning the sprockets. 9. Is it clean? Most ink jet printers have a simple user
procedure for cleaning the print heads. You may have to clean them
periodically or after the printer has been idle for a few days or
weeks. If you see funny colors or print-outs are missing colors, a
cartridge may be empty or a head dirty. You may have to clean a head
many times to get it working again. 10. Does it have paper? Be sure the paper is installed correctly
and there is enough of it. Most printers have a paper-out
detector. On most dot matrix printers it is a photo diode. If
form-fed paper is not aligned correctly (usually on the left side) the diode
won't see it. DOS may indicate it has lost communications with a
printer which is out of paper instead issuing a paper-out error. 11. Is it jammed? Paper jams are frequently the reason my
wife is able to fix many printers. She's very good at it (and she has
smaller fingers than mine). Always read the manual on how to clear a
jam. Don't be a "gorilla" with your
printer! You can easily damage a printer (strip gear threads, etc.), or
even get hurt, if you do not follow instructions and are not careful.
Turn the power off--unplug it. You have 110 volts running around the
inside many printers. And print heads, gears, etc. like to nip fingers. Laser printers have some very fine wires to
remove static charges from the paper near the fuser mechanism which will
break if you aren't very careful. Also, the fuser itself can be very
hot (it fuses/melts toner to the paper). Don't move a print head unless the instructions
direct it. You can damage the belt, etc. Address labels cause many paper jams and cannot
always be seen. The old shirt cardboard trick can be used to dislodge
them from many printers. Just feed a shirt cardboard (or cut a piece of
like-sized cardboard form a file folder) through like a sheet of paper and
wiggle the label loose and out. Staples, paperclips, dog hair, and cookie crumbs
are among the many things we have coaxed out of printers. A staple will
raise havoc with the drum in laser printers. If you see vertical lines
on pages printed by a laser printer (or copy machine), the drum is probably
scratched. Replacing it can be a very expensive repair, indeed. If jams persist, or the printer won't feed paper,
there is a good chance that gears are stripped or rollers are worn-down or
have flat spots. Fixing this sort of problem may require
specialized tools and elaborate alignment procedures and is often best done at
a printer repair depot. It is not usually economically feasible
to send low-end ink jet and dot matrix printers, etc. to a repair
depot. Sometimes roller problems can be fixed by cleaning the rollers. Changing to a different kind of paper may
help. Refer to your user manual for guidance. On humid days, slightly damp paper can cause jams
by sticking together causing more than one sheet to be fed at a time.
Try removing the paper from its tray, etc. and fanning it. Make sure
the edges or corners aren't curled and the tray is either not too empty or
too full. Read the book... Then there are those printers which no one can
figure-out how to dissemble without damaging them... 12. Is it wedged? The printer memory could be full or there
may my a glitch caused by a power spike.
Turn-off the printer, wait a few seconds and turn it back on. CABLE 13. Is it connected? The printer test prints, but it won't go on
line... Well, is the cable from the printer to the computer connected. Screw down the DB-25 connector at the
computer end and clip the Centronics connector at
the printer end (your printer and computer may have different connectors;
e.g., USB). Push-in and wiggle the connectors. 14. Is it connected to the printer port? Some SCSI (Small Computer System Interface)
are physically identical to the male DB-25
connectors used for standard IBM/IBM-compatible printer ports. Plugging
a printer into a SCSI port can damage the SCSI host board and the printer. 15. Do you have the correct cable? Many printers now require an IEEE 1284 and
Bi-Directional. USB cables shouldn't be longer than 15 feet. 16. Is the cable good? Check for bent pins. Try another
cable. 17. Is it connected properly? Screw the PC end down and latch the Centronics end at the printer. 18. Is there something else connected to
the printer port? Disconnect it and
uninstall the device drivers for it. 19. Does the printer port have a software
security device on it? These devices
attach to the printer port and the printer cable attaches to the device.
They can break. Try printing without it. COMPUTER 20. Is the printer port set-up correctly in
your computer's BIOS Setup?
Try the various printer modes in your computer's CMOS Setup. ECP+EPP usually works with bi-directional printers, but others may fix the
problem. 21. Is the correct printer cable/header
assembly installed and is it plugged-in right? I have seen cases where a baby AT
motherboard was upgraded, but the printer cable/header assembly from the old
motherboard was used and caused problems, but that is very rare. Also, the
cable connecting to the motherboard could be backwards or loose. DOS 22. Does it print from the DOS
prompt? Try F8 (F8 or hold the
Ctrl Key for Win 98) just as Windows starts to boot, select the DOS prompt
from the resulting menu, find a non-zero length text file (one that is 1-2K
would be a good choice) (e.g., autoexec.bat or something ending in .txt), and
print from DOS with: Click Cancel, turn the printer off, unplug the
printer cable, wait a few seconds, reconnect the cable, make sure the printer
is on with no error lights, restart Windows, and try again.’ Try the
various printer modes in your computer's CMOS Setup. ECP+EPP usually works with bi-directional printers, but others may fix the
problem. Try F8 just as Windows starts to boot, select the DOS prompt from
the resulting menu, find a non-zero length text file (one that is 1-2K would
be a good choice) (e.g., autoexec.bat or something ending in .txt), and print
from DOS with: WINDOWS 23. Is it set-up properly? Be sure Windows is set-up correctly with
the correct printer driver and something else (another printer, FAX, etc.) is
not assigned LPT1: Be sure the printer is set as the default Windows printer.
Try it on another desktop computer. If that works, try another printer on the
suspect computer. Uninstalling and reinstalling the printer often fixes
problems. Get rid of duplicate printers. 24. Does it have a stuck print queue? Start>Settings>Printers>double
click the printer> Printer>Purge Print Documents 25. Have you used Windows Help to solve the
problem? Start>Help>Contents>Troubleshooting>Windows
98 Troubleshooters>Print. 26. Have you used Microsoft's Knowledge
Base? Start with: Q128345 Troubleshooting Printing Problems
in Windows 95/98 . |
