Allen Zadr's Journal: HP PSC (Printer Scanner Copier) - Strange Prob/Solution

May be usefull for non-geeks as well, so I'm posting it without the usual [Geek] warning.

I have an HP psc 2110 all-in-one. It's about 2 1/2 years old, IIRC. About two months ago it stopped printing. It wouldn't even try to print. It wouldn't print under Linux or Windows. I re-installed the drivers, unplugged it for a minute, tried a different USB cable... all the usual troubleshooting steps - maybe not in that order. When I turned on the printer, windows would notice. When I turned off the printer, windows would notice (and set the printer as not available). But... any attempt to actually print something would immediately fail...
Oh, yeah, even weirder... Scanning didn't work either. Just nothing.

Well, my wife really needs to print some stuff, so she asked me to make it work again. Heh. Oh, there's my magic IT wand!

So, I pulled the ink, and put it back in... "Press Enter to align printer cartridge"... (Enter) dead. On windows, "Check ink cartridge". Heh. Stupid Zadr forgot that 80% of the printer intelligence is in the stupid ink cartridge.
Trip to store... replace cartridge.

Hey, it prints, it scans, it copies.

Weird stuff.

nice timing

[Bill Dog]

Wow, thanks, my folks have the same model, and complained that it stopped printing 3 or 4 days ago. I was going to reinstall the (crappy ass) HP printer drivers (that never fully installed to begin with), but this did the trick.

Re:nice timing

[Allen Zadr]

I'm glad I could help. Really severely screwed up how dependent this thing is on the damned cartridge(s), and even worse - the lack of error messages in this area.

Re:nice timing

[Bill Dog]

For home laser models I've heard that the fuser or somesuch is built into the toner cartridge, so maybe with these inkjets the nozzles are built into the cartridge, and if the electrical contact goes or a chip inside fails, game over. Even when it's not out of ink (like in my folks' case).

The bottom line with models at that price point is to cut corners whereever they can (like no power button on some lasers!). The shitty HP software that came with it that fails to install completely looks like it was outso

Re:nice timing

[Allen Zadr]

XP .. Pre-vs-Post SP2

Set up Windows (base)
Install printer driver
Upgrade to SP2

Otherwise, the driver software flakes. I'm pretty sure that's the issue (and, of course, it's an older unit).

Re:nice timing

[Bill Dog]

Heh, if only -- they're running Windows 98 Second Edition! What year is it? Ya, I know. The HP setup program failed when it got to installing the scanning stuff, so they can print, and copy, but not scan (so it could be called an "HP PS^HC 2110"!). And printing doesn't work sometimes. I understand it's not a "real printer" (real printers have a memory buffer that receives the data from the computer immediately, and a CPU that executes it to print the page). These cheapos borrow your computer's memory and CP

Re:nice timing

[Allen Zadr]

Fully agreed. Sounds like a damned Optiplex in there.

Huh

[nizo]

Our HP all-in-one is having fits too, and it is time to change the cartridges. Thanks for the tip, I will have to try this out. Time for us to get a seperate linux compatible scanner probably too, sheesh.

Re:Huh

[Allen Zadr]

Awesome. I'm so glad I posted this. It was useful to twice as many people I had hoped it would be.