Printer is NUTS!

[navychop]

Background:

I've had multiple problems with my PC. I finally, after one of the two RAID 1 1.5TB drives failed, rebuilt from ground zero with 1TB RAID 1 drives (might try 3 or 4 HDD RAID 5 in future). Still, a work in progress. Intel 920 2.67 18GB W7 64. ASUS Sabertooth X58 MOBO. Outlook 2007 now working OK (lost my junk mail rules- still there, just not functioning), Waterfox up and running, Office in general OK. Haven't loaded much else. Norton 360.

Problem:

Printer is an HP all in one 8500 connected via wired LAN, NOT wireless or USB. Worked fine yesterday. Today, would not print. Shows up as "printing" but printer does not do it's usual noise and start printing. Replaced driver, which was reinstalled via Add Printer route, with the full s/w from HP site. No joy. Send print command, wait an hour or more for it to actually print. OR- reboot PC and it prints. Power off/on on printer makes no difference. I power cycled router and modem- no diff. Scanning from 8500 works fine, immediately. It's just the print commands, which worked fine yesterday, will not work immediately today. Troubleshoot usually says printer offline. But it isn't.

This problem sounds vaguely familiar, but I can't place it. What am I overlooking? How can I fix this problem? Only thing I haven't tried is to change from wired to wireless. Don't want to do this, because the two PCs that normally print do not have wireless capability. And a direct USB connection means my PC must always be on for the other PC (or other devices) to print anything. This model was bought specifically FOR the network printing ability.

I could replace it with an MX850, but I'd rather not. I think it's something in the setup, not the actual printer itself.

And would I really see any speed increase with a 3 or 4 HDD RAID 5 array?

 

[mike123abc]

I have had the problem with other printers when the printer changed IP addresses. I have had to completely remove the printer and all drivers and reinstall to get it to work. I get the router now to always give the printer the same IP address.

 

[riffjim4069]

Agree...remove and reinstall.

 

[mike123abc]

On the raid note, the only speedups I have really seen with raids on PCs if doing huge file work like editing videos.

If you want the general OS to work faster, an SSD for the boot drive will do more for you than any raid will ever do.

 

[Teehar]

yep what they said.Had very similar problems with a brother aio last year.Doing that resolved the issue.

 

[navychop]

Reinstalled 3 times. IP set to .16 and that is confirmed at the printer panel and in the properties.

 

[harshness]

Reinstalled 3 times. IP set to .16 and that is confirmed at the printer panel and in the properties.

Is .16 outside your DHCP address range???

 

[navychop]

Good idea. Went to router and yep, all is fine. 192.168.1.16 is ok and I did a connectivity test: 4 pings, 0% loss, 1 ms.

With all starting 192.168.1. I have:
3
11
12
13
14
16
17
18
20
22
34
45 wireless
48
131

Now that I've gone to the Actiontec router and poked around, I realize I have a server set up as DHCP host. Gotta go snoop there, the router is innocent!

 

[StevenD]

Hook it up via wiFi or USB to just make sure the printer isnt toast.

Did I miss? Have you already tried from another computer?

 

[navychop]

Weirder, it gets.

I just sent a test print to the printer and stepped out when it didn't print. Back after 3-4 minutes and it printed the page. Sent a test print from another PC and it printed immediately.

I really don't think it's toast. Thing is, I remember this happening before, but not how I fixed it.

All help is appreciated.

 

[navychop]

OK, I sent a test print 25 minutes ago and it still hasn't printed.

 

[jimdandyvi]

I used to have problems with my HP if a print job failed or gets terminated. Spooler file would get corrupted. Only way I could fix it was power off printer and power off PC ( just restarting would not flush out spooler).

 

[navychop]

Here's my troubleshooting:

I went to Devices and Printers and selected the printer and then to Printer Properties and pressed Print Test Page- no printing happens. But it's in the que. Status is blank. Continuing on to the General tab, Preferences then Features tab and then the Printer Services button on the bottom. Then selecting the Network Settings tab, I get: "Unable to retrieve network settings from the device."

But if I do that from the other PC, the correct IP address, etc, appears. It therefore seems the problem, as you folks stated above, lies in my PC, not the printer itself.

I'm going to throw in the towel, declare the problem to be in my PC, delete the que, delete the printer, and find another, perhaps OLDER driver set to install. Perhaps I kept it on the other PC. There certainly are different sources for the driver on the net. I took what I believe was the latest and greatest from the HP site. I'll look more carefully.

Cannot reboot for a few minutes- burning a DVD9.

 

[navychop]

I used to have problems with my HP if a print job failed or gets terminated. Spooler file would get corrupted. Only way I could fix it was power off printer and power off PC ( just restarting would not flush out spooler).

Another thing to try, tks.

 

[harshness]

Try disabling the Norton firewall. I've been completely stymied by it a number of times.

 

[navychop]

Yes. After about 2.5 hours, it appears fixed. It took a combination. Seems this is a known problem with HP and they had a couple of software fixes to correct network and PC to printer communication problems. Running them, AND killing the firewall, seems to have corrected the problem.

Thanks to all.

It's Stella time!

 

[navychop]

On the raid note, the only speedups I have really seen with raids on PCs if doing huge file work like editing videos.

If you want the general OS to work faster, an SSD for the boot drive will do more for you than any raid will ever do.

Yes. RAID slows things down, but a RAID 5 is supposed to be faster than a RAID 1. I have no idea how much faster- but I gather from your post, no practical effect for what I do. I will start doing minor video edits, but that's it. The tradeoff was speed vs cooling (1 or 2 more HDD packs them next to each other) and since we've dispensed with the speed......

Yep, I'm sure an SSD will do wonders. And burn a hole in my empty wallet. I'll get by.

Now to address a video card problem resulting in poorly formed letters (sometimes).