Frontpage Story #57

This is an update to my previous post, which was done in great haste on lots of caffine, very early in the morning. My apologies for the misspellings and the profanity. I realize that there are a few more things that need to be said:

A few more words on Compaq printers:

General:
The shortages of available printers and cartridges for dispatch has passed, so if you have a broken IJ-series printer, we currently have a large stock available for replacement. If you are waiting on a dispatch of any sort, PLEASE call us back within a week to check on the order. Our customer database is notorious for losing orders. Additionally, many dispatches get rejected by the system because the tech responsible forgot a detail or two.

This bears much consideration.

Specific Printers:

IJ200: Utterly worthless for most people. Slow, unreliable, has a tendency to jam paper on a regular basis. Cartridges can be hard to find. On the plus side, it's dirt cheap. The printer itself costs about as much as a replacement cartridge. Speaking of which, IJ200 cartridges can be hard to find, as they are incompatible with cartridges from the rest of the series. You get what you pay for.

IJ300: Reasonable for home use, but still has its problems. I haven't had a "My printer is smoking!" call in about a month, so I think they might have fixed this problem. Chronic paper jams are less common, and on the whole the printer is Ok. IJ300, IJ700, and IJ900 cartridges are all interchangeable. The install program off the CD is actually pretty nice, and you don't have to screw around with telling the computer to look at your CD drive two or three times to find separate install "disks"

IJ700: Beginning of the tolerable printer line with dual cartridges. Not too much to say here except that occasionally there is a problem with the encoder strip. The IJ900 has this problem too: There is a flat ribbon leading into the cartridge holder, and occasionally the connection works its way loose. When this happens, the carriage SLAMS to the left, and the printer ceases to function. This is easily fixed by jiggling the ribbon (the encoder strip) where it connects to the cartridge holder. About three out of four times I can walk a customer through fixing this themselves.

IJ750: I actually like this printer... we don't get many calls for it. Install program is nice, like the IJ300's, and is easy to use. Even though the rate of printing is slower than the IJ900, the 750 is MUCH more reliable.

IJ900: Lots of problems, but supposedly the top of the IJ-series. Some won't print landscape, and the encoder strip problem is common. Very tempramental, but they are fast. Install program is crap: most of the calls I get on 900s are install issues.

AJ900; AJ1000: All in one fax-modem-scanner that scares the hell out of me at the merest THOUGHT of trouble shooting it. I've heard that it's disturbingly reliable though. There are some conflicts because this series has an internal modem of its own and it tends to bang heads with a computer's modem. Our site doesn't support these models. Someone else will have to do the briefing.

TROUBLE-SHOOTING YOUR IJ-SERIES PRINTER:

STEP 1: DOES THE PRINTER FUNCTION?
-Unplug all cables from the offending printer.
-Hold down any and all buttons and plug in the small black power cord into the back of the printer; keep this button down for 10-15 seconds, or until the printer starts printing.
-It should print out (deoending on what cartridges you have in the printer) black, magenta, yellow and cyan(blue) bars in solid horizontal stripes on the page.
-It won't stop printing until you unplug it, so after the first couple of sheets, pull the plug.

If the printer just sits and blinks at you, try it again three or so more times, then move on to step 2. If it goes through the motions, but no ink comes out, go to step 2.

Step 2: ARE THE CARTRIDGES WORKING
**REMEMBER TO REMOVE THE TAPE FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE CARTRIDGES**
If you call us because the printer acts like it's printing, but no ink comes out, and it turns out that you forgot to remove the tape from the print head, WE WILL LAUGH AT YOU!

Cartridges are tempramental: they have a lifespan of about a year, wether you use them or not, and are easy to damage. Lots of cartridges come out of the store bad. If you are getting bad print quality and doing the clean ink nozzle test doesn't help, it's likely that you need to replace the cartridge.

If you're printer seems broken(won't self test), and it's a dual cartridge printer (IJ700,750,900), try taking one of the cartridges out and doing the self test again. If it works, then it's just a bad cartridge. Replace it and move on with your life.

If your printer is in warranty and you have a bad cartridge, give us a call and we might replace it. If not, go bitch at your retailer.

STEP 3: IS THE SOFTWARE WORKING?

Go to Start-->Settings-->Printers;
Make sure that there's a check over the icon of your printer. If there is not, right click on the icon, left click on Set As Default.

Right click on the printer icon, then click on Compaq Control Program. Click on the cartridge tab. Click on Print test page. If this does not work, or on the STATUS tab the message "Printer is Offline" is blinking, check the cables, unplug the printer for fifteen seconds, and try again. If it still does not work, read through your manual, then call tech support. It's probably either the drivers(duplicate port drivers) or the paralell port settings(should be set to ECP). Messing with either of these should be done by someone who knows what they're doing.

That's all I really have to say on printers for the time being. If you have a Compaq IJ printer, you have my sympathies.

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Silent as a stone
Presarios in sleep mode
they shall never wake
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Strong wind shakes the branch
Fdisk-Format-Quick-Restore
It's re-install time
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Front Page Story
Author: TechMonkey
Email: nomail@convergys.com