Weird Things Happening With My Printer

[niels]

Hey everybody,

I'm experiencing some weird things with a pc and a printer of some acquaintance of me. I was hoping that some one could help me understand the problems.

The pc is running a old fashion Windows XP with LibreOffice installed on it.

Now the problem, occasionally they want to print some doc file and 50% of the time the printer works fine, they are using a Samsung printer (I can't remember the exact printer but I will update my post later on this.)

And the other 50% of the time, it seems like the pc doesn't pass on the command to print to the printer so weird.

They after some reboots it starts printing the queue automatically.

On the website of samsung I founded some tool to check the printer and do some tests and cleaning operation. And I responded fine to all the demanded actions.

Now could any body share there knowledge and help me fix this problem ?

Thanks a lot in advance.

[digip]

More than likely, the file is too large to print, and is timing out somewhere in the process, printer is out of memory and or communicating properly. Few things to try. If its a printer that takes memory, you can try upping the memory, but from the sounds of it, its a consumer printer, not a large commercial business printer so might not be a way to do this.

The other thought, is change the print settings, check to see if its printing after the first page is spooled or the entire thing is sent and then prints, which can also be an issue if it has low memory and cant keep up with the amount of work to print. Be sure to update the print drivers from the manufacturers website to be sure its not a bug as well.

Next, check the cables and any interference. If its printing over USB cable, replace the cable with one that uses ferrite cables, like this one: http://bit.ly/qpAh0g They help cut down on communication errors and interference from other electronics. They can sometimes make all the difference, and some devices will not work properly without one, an oversight from some OEM's in shipment of their products, making them perform buggy.

If its over a network and sent to a print queue on another device that all reports and print files sit on, then it could be the software running the print queue that needs a look, but thats generally something seen in large businesses that all print over the network and keep copies of all printed work on separate print servers themselves, not something you mentioned since you said a reboot causes it to start printing. If its over wireless, then chances are packets are dropping, interference is happening and its losing communication, and needs a manual restart.

Reboots are not needed to fix this if they get hosed. In XP(and any other windows) you can pull up the print queue and monitor it. If it times out, just click pause and restart the job. Until its gone from the print queue, it can be restarted or reprinted all together including canceling it.