Canon LBP-8II problem

[AScannerDarkly]

Once again begging for help...

I got this old Canon LBP-8II laser printer. I'm using XP's (home edition) own drivers, as they're the only ones I could find.

The problem is, this printer can't print anything non-text information correctly. I think it has something to do with the marginals. For example, if I try to print an image scaled to fill one A4-sized page, it prints approximately 3/5 of it, and then beeps an error message. If restarted, it prints the rest of the image divided on several pages, each of them containing a couple of square inches of the image, and all the scattered parts located approximately right below the middle point of the paper. If I resize the image so that there's plenty of marginal, it works fine.

This is OK, as I rarely have any need for laser printed images. Trouble arise, if I need to print out any documents containing any kind of non-textual elements. For example, if I try to print out my bank statement from my web bank, I get an error. My web bank divides different sections of the statement with vertical black lines, so for example a date and a money amount related to it are separated with a vertical continuous line, that continues from the top to the bottom of the statement.
LBP-8II can't print this correctly. It prints about 3/4 of the page, and then beeps. If restarted, it prints the rest of the page to the bottom of next page (and doesn't print anything else on this page, just this mentioned part on the bottom). Odd is, it does it so that from the 3/4 page it cuts the last line in the middle, and leaves the leftmost part of the line to the 3/4 page. Then it gives an error message, and when restarted, it prints the rightmost part of the line on the page with the rest of the first page of the statement.

Well, that was a clear explanation. I have to congratulate myself.

But if anyone has any clue on how to deal with this, I'd be most grateful. Or is it so that this printer is just too old to handle these things, and there's no workaround for it?

[DonJ]

Yes, this printer is indeed old but it still should be able to print out basic stuff without any problems.

Sometimes printing a webpage will cause screwy problems no matter which printer you might be using. Can you print out a spreadsheet from Excel or something similar that has a grid with data? Does this print out OK or is it screwy also?

You might also check out the Properties of your Printer. Right click on the Printer icon, select Properties and then click on the Fonts tab. You might play around with the True Type Fonts settings.

Just a couple of suggestions. Let us know how it ends up.

[AScannerDarkly]

Thanks for the reply!

The same problem occurs when printing a spreadsheet that has grid, images, PDFs, web pages... I've tried increasing the width of the marginals from page settings, but that doesn't help. (Actually, I do not know if I'm doing it right, or is it even possible to affect printing marginals via page settings, but even if I change the marginals, print preview and printout itself have the original marginals.)

And there's no Fonts tab on the preferences window. I think I've browsed through every option there is, but I did not find any font tab. And there's no option in the printer preferences the to change the page marginals, either.

Edit: I had a look at the printer status window, and it says that there's no paper. It prints part of the first page, and then then does this.

[slgrieb]

Has the printer always shown this behavior, or it a new thing after an XP upgrade, etc? How much memory is installed in the printer?

Got to say this is a bit hard to troubleshoot because it is almost an HP LJII, but not quite. Doesn't support PCL for instance. The printer originally shipped with 512 KB (yes, KB) but will take up to 4.5 MB. So, my first thought is that you just don't have enough memory to print pages with much in the way of graphics. Another possiblity with this printer is that the page may be too complex for the print engine to keep up with the mechanical part of the print process. Lastly, the printer could have a bad print engine.

[AScannerDarkly]

Thanks for the help, both of you.

It seems to be the memory, or more likely the lack of it (it should have 512KB), that is causing these problems. If I make a spreadsheet with just one a little over one page long vertical line, LBP-8II prints it. If I make a few parallel lines and horizontal lines crossing them, LBP-8II won't print anymore.

Too bad it's such and old printer. I'd really like to print with it, but like this it's quite useless.

I don't have any kind of manual, but I wonder if anyone of you would know what sort of memory these printers usually need, and how it should be installed. If I ever even come across a memory chip that fits...

[DonJ]

Just for grins, here is Canon's Support page for your LBP-8II:
http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/con...4&modelid=7986

As you can see, the info supplied is pretty limited.

You could try contacting their Tech Support. They are usually pretty good at responding within a day or so.

[AScannerDarkly]

I think I'll just introduce that scrap heat to a dump. It can't even print a single page with nothing more than just text (though filled with it). Printer control window says the size of the document is 128KB, and the printer can't handle even that. How can it be?