Printers are pure evil...

[chaos945]

Of all the printers, I have ever had my two HP's have been the best. My first printer was a HP and it lasted 5 years without 'major' problem being a new user at the time and running the brand spanking new Windows 95 it was pretty hot stuff for the time. After that, I went cheap and bought a Lexmark, it worked once then never again, even after swapping printers completely it NEVER worked again. By this time however I was reasonably adept with PC's and I didn't let this little hitch stop me so I went and took a look at another low end but good name printer thus ending up with what I have now the HP 656C.

Only thing is it drivers me completely insane when it’s printing large numbers of files. Its a pain when doing say, income taxes and my family says 'don't touch it, or it will mess up' of course I've got other things to do besides JUST printing so there I am doing whatever then *bzzzzt* my printer starts going mad printing what looks like some sort of code, Windings or some bleh spewing out, and wasting just the first few lines of paper to annoy me until I notice and slam off the power. Its great fun and I know I'm not the only one to ever experience this fantastic event, hopefully someone knows what’s going wrong cause I sure don't.

Windows XP Pro SP1 +autopatcher SP2 updates
HP 656C
CPU Athlon XP 2100+
RAM 768mb, could be running out?
Using NT EMP 1.008
Lots of spooling space....I don't get it.

 

[ming]

I don't think it's the printer itself that's causing the problem, but I'm not so sure if it's caused by anything else to be honest.
I've seen the dot matrix printer at my work place spit out a box of paper on which it's printer three lines of garbage on every once in a while.

 

[Henyman]

i bet it's not a usb printer?


seems chucking out junk is what old parrelel port printers do best

i have a lexmark z53 + it rocks!!! i think it may be you computer/port

 

[dreamliner77]

I hate printers too.

I had an old HP 500c. Thing was a workhorse from 1994. Died in 2000. Man I loved that printer. Solid as a brick sh*thouse. Rollers finally gave up the ghost. Ink was damn cheap for it too.

Since then I've had an assortment of HP's, Lexmark's, Epson's and Canon's. The HP's were the best of the bunch but don't compare to their older products. I won't even go into the hell I went thru with one of their MFP's. Lexmarks are just pure junk and the ink is way too overpriced. Epson's weren't bad but the damn tape thing on the cartridges... And I've never had a Canon last for more than 6 mos or so.

 

[chaos945]

Its a USB printer!!!! And it only happens when I'm printing large numbers of documents.

I hate Lexmark with a passion, and will not recommend their products to any of my customers.

 

[happyherb]

sounds like a memory problem (printer not PC), You may be able to upgrade/add some more memory or try breaking up large print jobs.