HP LJ 4100tn

[Damned Angel]

Got a strange one. Customer called me out to look at their printer, leaving grey backgrounds and sometimes will not print. Replace the toner cartridge, grey backgrounds are gone, but when I cycle the power on the printer, all that comes up on the display is two rows of "*****"

So I unplug the printer from the ups and plug it directly into the wall socket and cycle the power again. This time it powers up just fine. That was about 2 weeks ago.

Today, customer calls me up and says its doing it again. She came into the office, the printer was in power save mode. Went to print something, printer wouldn't respond. She then Cycled the power, and she gets the "*****" again. After cycling the power a few times it can finally print again.

I'm starting to suspect the fuser at this point since I believe that the printer shows the "*****" while it waits for the fuser to warm up. I asked her to try a different printer cable in the mean time to see if that sorts out her issue with it not returning from power save mode, but the more I think about it, The more I think fuser. It would make sense to me that the fuser has to warm up before it will exit power save.

has anyone ever seen this before, do you agree that the fuser is most likley the cause?

[slgrieb]

You have a bad formatter. The formatter controlls PowerSave Mode and data processing for the printer. If the fuser were bad, you would see the system come out of PowerSave and then generate a 50.X fuser error message. Printer error messages override PowerSave. The error message will alternate with PowerSave.

Of course, depending on the number of pages run through the printer, you might need to replace the fuser, but if that were the case you should see an explicit "perform printer maintenance" message. I suggest you print a menu map.

On the control panel press MENU until INFORMATION MENU appears, then press ITEM until PRINT MENU MAP appears and press SELECT. This will show pages printed, normal maintenance interval and so on. If you are close to the 200,000 page normal maintenance, go ahead and suggest that the customer do the regular maintenance while you are replacing the formatter. The maintenance kit for the specific printer has all the needed rollers and a fuser assembly. Your customer's nose will bleed when they see the price, but if it is all due soon, it is less expensive to do it in one call.

You should also be aware that print quality issues like the gray background may be independent of printer hardware problems. These can be caused by crappy aftermarket cartridges (mostly out-of-spec photo drums), paper that fails to meet HP specs, or excessively dry paper or paper that is loaded upside down.

[Cyphrr]

Damned Angel, you stated that the printer was or still is connected to the UPS? If so this might be something to check out. When a laser printer gets powered on, it switches on the fuser to heat up. This is nothing more than a 1000-watt light bulb inside coming on to heat the tube of the fuser. UPS boxes are sensitive to any power fluctuations. I was thinking that maybe the surge of current demanded by the fuser assembly is kicking the UPS to battery mode just for a sec. Unless this is a HUGE UPS, there is no way it is going to supply enough current to, at the same time the logic boards come online, to support the voltage needed to function correctly. Therefore it may be causing the ***** on the screen. (Question… Why is there a need to put a printer of any kind on a UPS? Just wondering…)

[Damned Angel]

You have a bad formatter. The formatter controlls PowerSave Mode and data processing for the printer. If the fuser were bad, you would see the system come out of PowerSave and then generate a 50.X fuser error message. Printer error messages override PowerSave. The error message will alternate with PowerSave.

Of course, depending on the number of pages run through the printer, you might need to replace the fuser, but if that were the case you should see an explicit "perform printer maintenance" message. I suggest you print a menu map.

On the control panel press MENU until INFORMATION MENU appears, then press ITEM until PRINT MENU MAP appears and press SELECT. This will show pages printed, normal maintenance interval and so on. If you are close to the 200,000 page normal maintenance, go ahead and suggest that the customer do the regular maintenance while you are replacing the formatter. The maintenance kit for the specific printer has all the needed rollers and a fuser assembly. Your customer's nose will bleed when they see the price, but if it is all due soon, it is less expensive to do it in one call.

You should also be aware that print quality issues like the gray background may be independent of printer hardware problems. These can be caused by crappy aftermarket cartridges (mostly out-of-spec photo drums), paper that fails to meet HP specs, or excessively dry paper or paper that is loaded upside down.

I know they are still far off from the maintenance kit and yea, they aint cheap. I suggested they change the rollers in one of their trays as the printer is making that noise it makes when the paper is being picked up and it slips on the worn rollers, but they said they never use the tray that is doing it so they don't want the rollers. I will look more into the formatter though. Should only be a couple hundred dollars + onsite fee. I'll talk to them tomorrow about it and see if they want to do it.

Oh, the printer is no longer plugged into the UPS. I explained to the user already that that is a big no-no for a laser printer.

[Hippie_Tech]

Damned Angel, you stated that the printer was or still is connected to the UPS? If so this might be something to check out. When a laser printer gets powered on, it switches on the fuser to heat up. This is nothing more than a 1000-watt light bulb inside coming on to heat the tube of the fuser. UPS boxes are sensitive to any power fluctuations. I was thinking that maybe the surge of current demanded by the fuser assembly is kicking the UPS to battery mode just for a sec. Unless this is a HUGE UPS, there is no way it is going to supply enough current to, at the same time the logic boards come online, to support the voltage needed to function correctly. Therefore it may be causing the ***** on the screen. (Question… Why is there a need to put a printer of any kind on a UPS? Just wondering…)

That brought up a red light for me as well. Hooking a laser printer through a UPS is a definite no no.

[rqc02]

Call HP tech support

[imagoon]

The only other reason that the printer would get stuck at ********* is due to a fauly ram module, but 9 times out of 10 the module would cause an error condition. If the on-board had bad ram failed an locked the proc then replace the formatter.

C4118-69008 193.00 Formatter board assembly
REQUIRES RETURN OF DEFECTIVE PART

C4118-67908 440.00 New part for C4118-69008
quite pricey, above is for referance (for 4119A) only as there is 2 models 4119A and 4121A (the R models are refurbs)

Parts info and service information located at:

http://partsurfer.hp.com/cgi-bin/spi...ers%3ALaserJet

~Chris

You have a bad formatter. The formatter controlls PowerSave Mode and data processing for the printer. If the fuser were bad, you would see the system come out of PowerSave and then generate a 50.X fuser error message. Printer error messages override PowerSave. The error message will alternate with PowerSave.

Of course, depending on the number of pages run through the printer, you might need to replace the fuser, but if that were the case you should see an explicit "perform printer maintenance" message. I suggest you print a menu map.

On the control panel press MENU until INFORMATION MENU appears, then press ITEM until PRINT MENU MAP appears and press SELECT. This will show pages printed, normal maintenance interval and so on. If you are close to the 200,000 page normal maintenance, go ahead and suggest that the customer do the regular maintenance while you are replacing the formatter. The maintenance kit for the specific printer has all the needed rollers and a fuser assembly. Your customer's nose will bleed when they see the price, but if it is all due soon, it is less expensive to do it in one call.

You should also be aware that print quality issues like the gray background may be independent of printer hardware problems. These can be caused by crappy aftermarket cartridges (mostly out-of-spec photo drums), paper that fails to meet HP specs, or excessively dry paper or paper that is loaded upside down.

[rgharper]

Got a strange one. Customer called me out to look at their printer, leaving grey backgrounds and sometimes will not print. Replace the toner cartridge, grey backgrounds are gone, but when I cycle the power on the printer, all that comes up on the display is two rows of "*****"

I had that once with a bad internal JetDirect card. Sometimes it would POST and boot, sometimes it would just hang at the "******" display.

Try removing the JetDirect card and booting it up. If it boots then you most likely have a bad JetDirect card, though it could also be a host board fault.