Printers spitting out rubbish

[Homer]

'lo all,

 

We have printers set up via networking, with them all installed on a central print server and a script connects the machines to them. You get the idea.

 

That, isn't the issue though. The issue is where some people print large print runs, it starts to run garbage off, sometimes windings type stuff, but as of late it's more... random scatterings of ink on the page.

 

Some of the stuff I'm looking at now is just paper with stuff printed on the page, but the stuff printed has been kicked to the side.

 

I can't describe it better than that, the printers are 4250/2550/5500n's and are running on PCL5e where available (we had more problems with PCL6) but we're still getting issues.

 

Anybody have any ideas? I'm stumped and don't know where to start!

 

thanks all

[contink]

First port of call would be to check your current spooler settings... Try changing them to "Start printing after last page is spooled". I've seen stuff go whappy because the computer died mid-send.

 

I'd also check that your printer drivers haven't been messed up or changed somehow... perhaps a little re-installation or updating may be in order.

 

Next up I'd see if perhaps there's an issue with say Vista or linux or something similar being installed that has the wrong drivers or incompatible ones. Wild assed guess but you never know.

[Homer]

'tis set to start printing after the last page is spooled, print drivers shoooouldn't have changed but I'll re-install them when everybodies gone home tonight.

 

As for the Vista/Linux idea... we don't have any Linux boxes but our workstations ARE Vista and we do have a 4250 - could Vista have bolloxed with the driver somehow?

 

cheers mate

[contink]

As for the Vista/Linux idea... we don't have any Linux boxes but our workstations ARE Vista and we do have a 4250 - could Vista have bolloxed with the driver somehow?

 

I couldn't say for sure but it's possible that Vista doesn't like the older drivers or there could be some related problem... A little googling re: Vista with keyword like PCL5, HP, drivers, etc... may provide the clue you need.

[contink]

Did a bit of looking around myself and found this:

 

http://www.itnewsgroups.net/group/microsoft.public.windows.server.general/topic30772.aspx

 

May be useful, although not necessarily great news :|

[Geoff]

That's correct, you'll have to wait for W2k8 Server. Or use a Linux print server.

[Homer]

trying to make sense of that link (was here till 9ish last night, and im bloody tired), and if my brains making any sense... basically vistas screwing the drivers up?

 

so if thats the case... ditch vista or switch to a *nix print box?

 

cheers lads

 

// for clarification, only our workstations in the office (3 of us) are running on vistarse, boss has a vista laptop aswell, but it's not on the domain or using the print server.

[contink]

// for clarification, only our workstations in the office (3 of us) are running on vistarse, boss has a vista laptop aswell, but it's not on the domain or using the print server.

 

For a quick fix you could try installing the vista drivers for a fictional LPT1 connected printer (ie: don't allow it to detect) and then change the port to the shared network printer.

 

At least then vista would have the correct drivers for the correct printer. Worth a shot if nought else.

 

As for nix... just talk to Russ IIRC he's a real fan of nix* printservers

[enjay]

We had a similar problem on our network recently, which I eventually resolved by moving the printers so that they were patched into the backbone switch rather than the switch which had all the PCs on (of course, this might not be possible with your topology).

 

The route of a print job was: PC > Satellite Switch > Backbone Switch > Server > Backbone Switch > Satellite Switch > Printer. This resulted in lots of garbage getting printed, which stopped now the route is PC > Satellite Switch > Backbone Switch > Server > Backbone Switch > Printer. So, I'm guessing it was something to do with traffic volumes and/or packet collisions.

 

Early morning post, does that all make sense?

[Homer]

does make sense

 

i changed one printer to PS to see if that worked (i knew it was persistently spitting out garbage) and it works fine... so not QUITE sure what to do now

[tech_guy]

You sure it's not kid's work? I once chucked a load of paper in the bin from a printer thinking the machine had spazzed itself but it turned out to be some kid's coursework....whoops.

[Homer]

hhahahahahaha, i sometimes think that, but unfortunately no.

 

the printer i made the change on, is the printer located in the director of finance/resourcing and that stuffs office, so naw.

 

fine on postscript... now what i wonder

[enjay]

You sure it's not kid's work? I once chucked a load of paper in the bin from a printer thinking the machine had spazzed itself but it turned out to be some kid's coursework....whoops.

I've never accidentally thrown out work, but I do remember that once I was just chucking out some duff print outs (random characters, shapes and blocks of colour all over the page) when the Art teacher stopped me, as she reckoned they looked quite cool so kept them :-)

[bossman]

We had a program that the kids used to try printing out from can't for the life of me remember what it was called except it was some vector based graphical package and it used to printout lots of gobbledegook. Everything else was not a problem.

 

Have you tried PCL6 drivers instead of PCLe5 just a thought.

[Homer]

yeah there was even more junk on PCL6 bossman, least on PS it seems

[contink]

TBH... I doubt less junk is good news compared to more junk.. Junk is junk and in this instance I think you've proven that the drivers are indeed the issue.

 

I'd recommend going with the nix solution until you can resolve things.

[mrbios]

had this issue with our kyocera printers when we first got them, turned out to be 2 things: 1 being we had it set to PCL6 and it had to be KPDL and the second....and most irritating was that we had to completely remove all traces of the kyocera drivers and reinstall the newer ones that didnt have the problem

 

so it to me sounds like a driver issue

[laserblazer]

You can download a utility from the Kyocera site to strip out old drivers.

[jcook117]

We had this issue when school resumed when printing from the IE 7 to HP 4100's. I resoved the issue by using HP's universal print driver.

 

It woud print random text from within IE and if the page was copied/pasted into Word it would print different random text.