Printer?

Odian

Any body know why my printer-HP 640C desk prints out a blank sheet after a nrmal print out,well not completly blank one line of crap is on it like £$%^&&*(&^%$£££££$@~:}}{}+_ ??

its serial port aswell

Thxs

Odian

azezil

Not sure... maybe currupt drivers? Re-install drivers

Odian

still wasting up expensive ink?

any ideas?

Victor

I've seen this happen a lot with various printers, the 'jibberish' is often associated with an cancelled or 'interfered with' (STOP!!!pressing the buttons on the printer) print job. Is it possible to print a one (short) page without this happening?

Odian

yea it does, it wudnt mean the ink is running low wud it? how do i no if i have to replace the cartridges?

Victor

I don't think it's that. If you are getting real characters (albeit non-sensical), it would not usually have anything to do with the mechanics of the printer and is purely down to the electronic parts.

Usually the print quality will start to fade substantially (usually in the centre) when you need to replace the cartridge (typical laser cartridge good for 5,000- 10,000 copies)

Suggestion. Make sure you turn of the printer (or unplug for 5-10 seconds if there is no on/off switch) when you turn off the computer today (lunchtime or evening). Turn on the printer (let the printer boot-up completely before touching the computer) before the computer in the morning (or after lunch). Find a simple, short document (say a short letter) and print it once (do not touch the printer until it has stopped printing). Do you still get the gibberish page?

Occidental

The 640C is either USB or Parallel, so which are you using and what is your operating system?

If it's a Windows machine you should find a Start-Programs-Deskjet Utilities group, which will let you test printer communication and print a test page.

From the sounds of it you are either using the wrong driver or a corrupt one, but the above should give you some idea.

Saruman

Is your printer USB or LPT (parallel)?
Pray its Parallel.. I hate USB printers with a vengence.. If it is im not surprised by this.

Anyway IF its LPT pring something in DOS and see if it does the same thing, then go through your bios settings changing LPT mode to what HP recommend.. ECP/EPP etc..

Its probably drivers though.. try a test page in windows.. if it does the same do a HP hardware test page.. usualy while printer is OFF hold in paper eject button (one with arrow pointing away from a page) then while holding it in turn on ptinter holding in power button abd eject button for a moment then it should do the test.. may be different these days...

oh if its a new type system, especially with an Intel 815 chipset or above.. make sure you have chipset drivers installed, in fact just reinstall them

have phun...

MarcusGarvey

I saw this happen before on older printers and the solution given by HP was to leave the printer on. It had the little smiley face on the printout.

This was a laser printer. Never seen it happen with a deskjet.

This sounds like drivers to me though.