basics of printer troubleshooting

1. Printer Troubleshooting Designed by www.techpings.com

11. Troubleshooting Strategies Check that off-line printing is not selected in the properties Check that the job is not paused Purge the first print job Reboot computer and/or printer The Print Manager in the OS created the jobs but the spooler has not sent them to the printer. If no jobs in the Manager, continue troubleshooting steps Print jobs to not reach the printer Clean print heads or drum Replace ink cartridges or toner Change print quality settings in the printer properties Light blinking, uneven printing, colors missing or faded, or streaks on the paper can indicate problems with ink or toner supply, laser drum damage, or wrong settings Print quality is poor Clear the paper path Add acceptable paper type Change ink cartridges, remembering to remove any packaging tape Possible indication of a paper jam, no paper, or no ink. Wrong paper type, not enough paper in the tray, or the printer not sitting flat can cause a paper jam Message lights blinking on printer or display screen shows error message Possible Solutions Information Provided Troubleshooting Issue

12. Troubleshooting Strategies Delete files in the Temp directory - *tmp Delete files in the spool/printers directory - *spl Ensure there is enough space Scan and defrag the partition Windows uses the hard disk partition that contains the windir to temporarily store print jobs before sending them to the printer. Insufficient space for the content may cause the errors Incomplete documents, garbled characters or documents print slowly Choose to print directly to the printer in the printer properties. Disable bi-directional support Verify the printer manufacturer and model number. Dispatch tech to reinstall drivers If a test page can be printed from a command prompt and not Windows, the Windows print driver is corrupted. No printing can occur from the DOS prompt to a USB printer. Printing from command prompt but not from Windows Reboot computer to clear memory and restart the application Dispatch repair tech to reinstall the application If a test page can be printed then the OS print driver is working. If no test page can be printed, continue troubleshooting steps Cannot print from an application Possible Solutions Information Provided Troubleshooting Issue

13. Troubleshooting Strategies At a command prompt type: Net uselpt1 server namehare name /p Capture the printer port Cannot print from a DOS based program to a network printer Check the mapped path in the printer properties If possible, check that the print server is on and running Ping the print server The print server must be on, the path to the printer must be correct, and both computers must have network connectivity Cannot send print jobs to networked printer or TCP/IP printer Make sure the printer port is correct. Locally, this is usually LPT1 Networked printers are mapped to a specific location Check for conflicts in the Device Manager If the printer port is inactive or mapped to another location, print jobs will not print to the local printer. USB ports are not supported in Windows 95 OEM version or Windows NT Incorrect printer port or port conflicts Possible Solutions Information Provided Troubleshooting Issue

14. Troubleshooting Strategies In the Details tab of the printer properties, enter the number of seconds for the timeout session in the Timeout Settings group Transmission retry is the amount of time in seconds the printer waits before it cannot accept characters Print job times out Go to the printer properties and click the Details tab Select to capture the printer port and then type in a path if it needs to be entered, otherwise the LPT port is chosen Capture the printer port Cannot print from Windows to a network printer but network connectivity is not a problem Possible Solutions Information Provided Troubleshooting Issue