4100N Freezes needs to be shut off then back on

[stevenriz]

We have a 4100N that prints great but now every day or two it will just freeze. Nothing you do on the control panel works and it needs to be shut off, then back on again. Then it works fine for another day or two. Granted it has over a 500,000 page count. What could be wrong with it? Should I target a board or something in there? Should I just call someone for service? We are pretty handy here.
Thanks!

 

[longhair]

stevenriz,
look at printing the config (or one of the options) it should list the last 3 or so errors (and dates etc) reported by the printer. use these error numbers to look up the issue on hp's website.
regards,
longhair

 

[stevenriz]

Hi and thanks. Yes I looked at the errors and it doesn't seem to log any error. It seems to freeze up before anything gets logged. The last errors relate to a paper jam. But there is no jam and nothing on the display.

 

[longhair]

stevenriz,
can you find out what print job is causing the issue? is it only one job that does or random (could be any job). th reason i ask is that i've seen jobs created by programers that accidentally send a bad escape code sequence to the printer and it causes issues.
regards,
longhair

 

[stevenriz]

I will have the users of that printer tell me when they printed the next time it happens. There is an automated print job that happens when we receive a fax using RightFax but that hasn't changed in 2 years. So you've seen printers actually just hang until it's rebooted because of bad esc sequences?

 

[longhair]

stevenriz,
yup.
just like anything else - if it's expecting x and you accidentally send y it doesn't know what to do.

double check on the rightfax. make sure there were no patches applied for the program.
is the printer a simple ipbased printer or are you using a spooler on a windoze server? if using a printer spooler on a server check to see if any patches were recently applied to the server.
regards,
longhair

 

[stevenriz]

OK Thanks longhair

we havne't patched anything on that system since we got it. It is a shared IP printer on NT 4.0 that hasn't been patched in a few months.

 

[longhair]

stevenriz,
by shared printer do you mean attached to a single pc and shared from it? if so check the event log on that pc. also check disk space on it. it may be a big job and there's not enough room on the pc to spool it.
regards,
longhair

 

[stevenriz]

No I mean it is a networked printer shared via Windows NT Server..

 

[longhair]

stevenriz,
same thing - check disk space on the server. check the event logs.
regards,
longhair

 

[LawnBoy]

I've had luck re-seating the jetdirect cards and also the motherboard they plug into. Stuff rattles loose over time.

 

[Misken]

something that isnt stated is, does it actually freeze when trying to print or does it freeze by itself?
what JD card is in use?
updated drivers?
restarted spooler?

otherwise you can try change spooler settings in driver, set it to print directly to printer and see if printer still keeps on hanging.. if not, the problem is windows related to the spooler, ive seen many issues with XP/2K spooler

also, is there DIMMs in use? if so, update printer firmware since afaik this printer doesnt have firmware updaet possibility without a DIMM.

Also of course, when a printer starts acting strange, try to find out if there has been any changes in the environment: OS changes, network updates, JD card settings etc

 

[LawnBoy]

ive seen many issues with XP/2K spooler

Ditto.