HP Color Laserjet 3500 prints blank pages

[falbaek]

We have several HP Laserjet 3500 installed on a Windows 2003 server. These printers are shared. We have one problem though every time a print job is sent to one of the printers it also prints a blank page - and no we have no separator page on.

We suspect it is the driver because if one of the printers is installed directly on the users pc then there is no problem.

Has anyone else heard of this, and maybe even a solution?

Thanks in advance!

 

[dilance]

Hi friend,

I would like to know if you found anything that could save my life also. I have the same HP 3500 shared over a windows 2003 server and every document prints out a blank page for every page of legitimate document.

Big help if you got an answer.

Tx a bundle

 

[Michael52x]

1}Check the servers driver
2}Check the documents app.
3}Check for users driver installation. No need for it.

 

[dilance]

Thank you for the reply Mike...

1- Server's driver is the latest from hp

2- This happens from ALL computers and ALL applications. The only computer immune to this problem is the server itself.

3- The users cannot install any drivers because they are not administrator. The printers were configured by myself as admin.

Thanx for your help!

 

[Sweg]

Try the point and print driver and see if that does the trick:

http://www.hp.com/cgi-bin/pond/pnp/pnp.cgi?t=en

 

[gbaughma]

You could also try changing your print processor on your 2003 box...



Just my 2¢

"In order to start solving a problem, one must first identify its owner." --Me
--Greg

http://parallel.tzo.com

 

[DaisyPatch]

Has anyone else solved this? We have an HP 3500n that has been printing fine since August 2004. I patched my windows 2000 Server print server Sunday night (the last time it was patched was in April). The secretary said it printed fine Monday until 10:00am. Then it began printing everything as brochures (2 pages to a piece of paper in tiny print, landscape). We downloaded the newest driver. It fixed the brochure problem but sent a blank separator page. If you web in or telnet into the built-in print server you can see that the banner page is disabled. Today (Wednesday) it started ejecting TWO blank pieces of paper before every job. And people who were printing longer jobs noticed that it was printing "back to front" even though the preferences were for "front to back."

I downloaded the point and print driver and changed the print server to use it - that fixed the problem.... after everyone deleted their connection to the printer and recreated it.

Is it possible that something in this summer's patches interacted unfavorably with the HP3500n driver software? Nothing else changed but that.

 

[Michael52x]

The answer may lie in the print server {on the printer} or the firmware. Make sure you are using a firmware, and not a driver patch. Using power strips? Plug straight into wall only. I'll look into this a bit more after lunch.

 

[Michael52x]

One more thing, configuring paper sizes, and trays can cause this to happen. Turn off jam recovery, in the system set-up menu. Letter? A4? Custom? Hope this helps.

 

[falbaek]

Hi all

Thanks for all your help. I have been on vacation, so therefore the late respons.

I have tested the things about jam recovery, and the firmware for the printserver is up to date. I have not tried the "point and print driver" suggested by Sweg. But if we use the Windows xp driver on the pc, there is no problem (Peer-to-peer printer). The problem only occurs when we use the printer on the server (Windows 2003 server).

So still no solution but will try the point and print driver later on.

 

[DaisyPatch]

Ours was the same way, falbaek. We tested the newest driver that we downloaded from an XP to the printer and it worked great. So we put it on the print server and went on to other things. That was when they called back about the blank pages being ejected before jobs.

I'm just curious - was it working ok for you and then started happening this summer? Could it have related to patching your print server?

 

[falbaek]

I am not sure, but I believe that this has been a problem since we got the printers, which is about a year ago. So I don't know if it has any connection with a patch

 

[falbaek]

We no longer have the problem. For us the solution was to install an update through windows update to the 3500 laserjet printer. That did the trick for us.

 

[gbaughma]

So.... it *was* the print driver... (see posts #3, 5, 6, 7....)



Just my 2¢

"In order to start solving a problem, one must first identify its owner." --Me
--Greg

http://parallel.tzo.com

 

[DaisyPatch]

Falbaek, do you know what update you installed? Our print server has been randomly locking up since I put the point and print driver on it. We've got 114 printers on it so it's hard telling the cause, but thats what I suspect, anyhow, so I would like to take it off.

 

[falbaek]

No I am afraid i don't. Just that is a driver update. It appeared when we did the windows update of the server. It wasn't me that did it, so I can't get any closer then that. Sorry

 

[gflo]

We had the same problem with the HP color LaserJet 3500n on our Windows 2003 print server. We fixed it by changing the print processor to WinPrint and set the Default data type to RAW.

 

[DaisyPatch]

Thanks, gflo! We took the Point and Print driver off of our W2K print server and went back to the original newest version for the HP3500n, set the print processor to WinPrint and the default data type to RAW. So far no landscape brochures, no blank pages, no printing back to front. Time will tell as whether or not the print server quits crashing every few days. However, I am hopeful....