COMMON PRINTER PROBLEMS:

• Paper Jams
• Image Distortions
• Remote Printing
• Garbled Text

Paper Jams

At times paper jams are not easy to find. They generally occur in three main areas: the pickup area, under the toner cartridge, and the exit area. Pull out the main paper tray, pull out the cartridge, and open up the rear exit door. The paper, or a torn piece, may have wedged itself into a small crevice or under an assembly. WARNING! The exit assembly contains the Fuser which is very hot, take caution when searching for a jam in this area.

Here's another common reason for a phantom paper jam. One of your co-workers, who will remain annonymous, decided to be a nice guy and refill the paper tray. Unfortunately he unintentionally moved the manual paper setting from "Letter" to "A5", which is slightly longer. It makes the paper slide backwards in the tray just enough to prevent the pickup rollers from doing their job. So, unless the jam is obvious, check the paper tray for irregularities.

Image Distortions

The most common reason for a smear is a defective toner cartridge. The easiest thing to do is to swap out the cartridge with a "known good" one. However, if this isn't possible, remove the toner cartridge and pull back the protective cover, without touching the photo-sensitive drum, and look for smears on the drum itself. If they're visible, replace the toner cartridge. If after replacing the cartridge the distortion continues, find an experienced printer professional in your area or send us some mail.

"I have long fine vertical lines and I replaced the toner cartridge. Now what?"

The next logical step is to replace the fuser. On some printers it is possible for the user to replace them because they're considered consumable components like in the case of the HP Color Laserjets. However it's a good idea to read your user manual because many are not user replaceable like the Lexmark laser printers.

"My printout has blurry areas. Is it my toner cartridge?"

Yes. It can be a defective cartridge. However before you drop $100 on a new cartridge, check the paper. Paper can build up moisture and cause toner not to adhere to the paper. This is likely if the environment is very humid or the ream of paper used is old. Inspect the paper, check for a wrinkled or wavy surface. Paper should be nearly flat like a board. If in doubt, use a new ream, a brand new ream; it shouldn't cost more than $6 to test the theory.

Remote Printing

First make sure you're on the network. The simplest way to verify is open your internet browser and see if you have access to the internet. Next, make sure the printer is turn on and on-line ready. Next, make sure the network port on the printer is plugged in, and if all checks out, contact your network administrator or system administrator for help. Now home network users may have to check the IP address of the printer. Since most home users use DHCP to resolve IP addressing, the printer's address may have been changed for whatever reason, and now Windows, or Mac OS X, is sending print jobs to the printer's known address and getting no feedback; thus the Operating System assumes the printer is unavailable. Now if this sounds like a foreign language, contact a network professional to setup your home network properly, or contact us for more information.

Garbled Text

Odd characters or garbled text will print out if there's a communication problem between the computer and the printer. Check the printer cable, look for kinks or torn insulation, next disconnect and re-connect the cable, make sure it's firmly connected and resend the print job. If the problem continues, eliminate the software by selecting START-RUN- type "cmd", then type "dir>LPT1" (provided the printer is connected to the Parallel port). If the printout looks good, reload the Windows driver and try again. If nothing works, contact a computer professional or send us mail for more information.