4550n HP color printer warm up.

[Lt. Columbo (formally Joevegany@..)]

I have a 4550n HP color printer at work. Thing takes forever to warm up and print. I mean it takes forever (drum warming up).
Any sugestions?
Disable Power save feature maybe?

[DonJ]

While I don't have an obvious answer to your qustion, the warm up time is for the fuser assy to reach proper temperature...this is usually done with a long halogen bulb. The fact that it does finally warm up probably means that the bulb itself is good...maybe bad sensors, etc. The drum may also be waiting reach proper temperature...I'm not familiar with your particular model number but I have worked on a lot of HP laser printers. The drum may have lost some of its characteristics...replacing it would probably be the first move.

Having said all of that, check out HP's website for your Color LaserJet. There are links on the left-hand side of that page for FAQ's, Solve a Problem, etc. Notice the link for Manuals...your User's Guide is available for download as well as some other stuff.

And oh yeah, disabling the Power Save feature would definitely cut out on the warm up time. Plus, if you use the printer on a semi-regular basis, leave that feature off anyway...it sure won't save you that much money.

Let us know how it goes...Good Luck!
Don

[DonJ]

Just as background, I also found this:

HP Color LaserJet 4550 printer family - How to Resolve Alphabetical Error Messages.

[Milenko]

I don't have much experience with the 4550, but we do have an 8550tn (also color), and it takes just over 5 minutes to warm up out of powersave mode. It did this right out of the crate, so I don't think that there's anything wrong with it.

As for turning powersave off, I've found this to be a bad idea unless the printer is used all day. If it doesn't go to sleep, then the drum unit is kept hot 24/7 at it seems to severly shorten the life of the drum. I just tell me users to go get another cup of coffee if they are the first ones printing in the morning <IMG SRC="smilies/smile.gif" border="0">

[Lt. Columbo (formally Joevegany@..)]

Trouble is the E/U is my boss. She manages a helpdesk and knows didley about IT. She's convinced that there has to be some way to shorten the wait time on the printer. The power save mode is set at 4 hours. Trouble is, the printer is used so infrequently that when she does use it, it's in sleep mode. So she's always waiting. She bought the darn thing, now she's bugging out 'cause she has to wait <IMG SRC="smilies/eek.gif" border="0">

[Milenko]

If it's not possible to make her understand what the printer is doing and why it's important for it to go into powersave, then you prolly don't have a choice but to disable powersave.

I highly recommend against it, but sometimes you just don't have a choice. <IMG SRC="smilies/frown.gif" border="0">

[Stalemate]

HP Color LaserJets *do* take some time to warm up. There is no way around this.

It may be more cost efficient to purchase an inkjet printer for this particular user so that the 4550 doesn't wind up costing an arm and a leg in maintenance costs.