HP Officejet Pro 8000 printing half pages

[cookie_monster]

We have recently bought three of these printers and are seeing odd issues. They seem to print fine for a while but then start printing half pages or just missing the bottom of documents. When I look at the printing defaults on the server they keep reverting to A5 and switching it back to A4 'seems' to sort it but i'm not quite convinced that it's the solution. Reinstalling the driver on the server also seems to sort the issue for a while. We have over 20 printer on this server and only the 8000s are having this issue.

 

These are all network printers shared from a Windows 2008 SP2 server with the latest HP drivers.

 

Any ideas what else I can try?

 

Thanks.

Edited January 20, 2010 by cookie_monster

[contink]

To be completely frank... Sell them on eBay and get something that works..

 

I started using HP Officejets when the K550 was around and the drivers were bad then... As the printers have developed* their driver writing skills have regressed further and further into the stone age to the extent that they simply do not work.

 

I was producing CIS kits for K5400, K8600 and L7000 series printers and MFD's... This was working ok except for some issues with the black ink which killed printheads constantly and finally got it all sorted enough when the 8000 series appeared.

 

Any thoughts I had of supporting them in a similar fashion has gone completely out the window when I did a cursory scan of reviews and forums. They are loathed, despised and completely unsuitable for purpose...

 

Perhaps the most telling point is that HP now license many of their home printer designs from Canon and you can see which ones very quickly when you look at the cartridges and realise they are clones. Unfortunately Canon doesn't write the drivers!

 

So, as I said... waste no more time on them... SimpleSi has been fighting them for some months now and will probably mirror this opinion...

[plexer]

If they are supported anything liek the 7000 I'm having problems with then server/client setup is a no-no as far as HP are concerned.

 

What do you recommend in A4 and A3 contink?

 

Ben

[contink]

What do you recommend in A4 and A3 contink?

 

Well.. It's not perfect but I have finally honed my systems down to:

 

K5400DTN

L7780's (multi function versions of the K5400DTN)

K8600DN

 

It's important to note that I have fought with these long and hard though and created my own CIS systems along with Auto Reset Chips which recently caused issues too.. They work but the key to keeping them working is staff training and a bit of patience.

 

The key lessons I learned are as follow:

- Do not use the OEM or any other pigment Black ink in the printers as it causes massive clogging issues in most school environments (air con & or stupid airless "boiler won't turn off" classrooms)

- Do not use a commercial CIS kit.. Instead recondition some high capacity cartridges and refill these or convert them into a CIS type kit yourself. The reason for this is that the commercial CIS/Refill kits use a cartridge that side steps the safety mechanism (pump) built into the OEM cartridges. Without it the printer can suck air into the printhead and knacker it in short order... OEM carts design does not allow this.

- Find some decent Auto Reset chips (I'll have some soon)

 

Costs are about one fifth of what they would have been and because it's bulk ink you aren't changing cartridges constantly which makes it easier for staff to handle the usual resetting routine.

 

 

Probably worth noting that I am looking at building a few kits again for these printers (mainly because the original kits are now a bit old and need replacing for my schools) so I'll have some for sale in a couple of months.

 

The down side is that all but the K8600 are retired so finding any is a bit tricky...

 

 

 

If you happy enough with cartridges though I'd look to older Canon printers like the iP4500.. and Epson 1400... CIS systems are available for the latter but I would never recommend a CIS for a Canon printer... Too much hassle.

 

Hope that helps..... Now to allow this back on topic

[cookie_monster]

To be completely frank... Sell them on eBay and get something that works..

 

I started using HP Officejets when the K550 was around and the drivers were bad then... As the printers have developed* their driver writing skills have regressed further and further into the stone age to the extent that they simply do not work.

 

I was producing CIS kits for K5400, K8600 and L7000 series printers and MFD's... This was working ok except for some issues with the black ink which killed printheads constantly and finally got it all sorted enough when the 8000 series appeared.

 

Any thoughts I had of supporting them in a similar fashion has gone completely out the window when I did a cursory scan of reviews and forums. They are loathed, despised and completely unsuitable for purpose...

 

Perhaps the most telling point is that HP now license many of their home printer designs from Canon and you can see which ones very quickly when you look at the cartridges and realise they are clones. Unfortunately Canon doesn't write the drivers!

 

So, as I said... waste no more time on them... SimpleSi has been fighting them for some months now and will probably mirror this opinion...

 

 

 

Oh excellent news. I wish the first one had started playing up before we bought the next two

[Quackers]

Try using the K550 drivers for the 8000, thats what we do on our Office Jet Pro 8000's, and they work fine. The 5400 and 8000 drivers are just not as good as the K550 drivers.

 

We have over 20 of a mixture of K550, 5400 and 8000 Inkjets and they are great little printers, run trouble free, and cost a lot less than Colour Lasers to run, had the K550 for a few years now. So i give them a big thumbs up

[RobFuller]

We have 20 or so of these with no issues at all (Win2K3R2 server XP SP3 clients) most have printed +1000 copies.

[cookie_monster]

We have 20 or so of these with no issues at all (Win2K3R2 server XP SP3 clients) most have printed +1000 copies.

 

 

 

 

Hmm we have 3 all not working correctly but running on a 2008 server.

 

I'll give the K550 drivers a try what version of that driver are you using Quackers?

 

Thanks.

[contink]

Try using the K550 drivers for the 8000, thats what we do on our Office Jet Pro 8000's, and they work fine. The 5400 and 8000 drivers are just not as good as the K550 drivers.

 

We have over 20 of a mixture of K550, 5400 and 8000 Inkjets and they are great little printers, run trouble free, and cost a lot less than Colour Lasers to run, had the K550 for a few years now. So i give them a big thumbs up

 

I just wanted to bump this solution with a thankyou because it completely bypassed my normal troubleshooting processes but saved me from a world of hurt today with a Win2k3 server setup that just wasn't playing nice.

 

It doesn't deal with background images in word docs properly but that's HP drivers all over...

 

Anyway, thanks for post it... definitely going in to the noggin as a FAQ solution

[Quackers]

Hmm we have 3 all not working correctly but running on a 2008 server.

 

I'll give the K550 drivers a try what version of that driver are you using Quackers?

 

Thanks.

 

I am on 60.52.623.0

[SimpleSi]

Try using the K550 drivers for the 8000, thats what we do on our Office Jet Pro 8000's, and they work fine.

 

If this works - I'll be be round with the beer

 

Maybe delay ordering the skip.

 

 

(I'd already tried using K5400s but they didn't work properly)

 

We have 20 or so of these with no issues at all (Win2K3R2 server XP SP3 clients) most have printed +1000 copies.

 

PLEASE PLEASE tell us how you set them up (or do you work for HP Marketing )

 

regards

 

Simon

 

@cookie-monster

 

These are without doubt the worst designed BusInkjet that HP have ever produced

 

But if the K550 drivers make them work (I'm talking basics like set them up as shared printer on server and deploy to workstations!) then maybe they can be redeemed!

[Quackers]

5400 printed in black and white with us until we used K550 drivers.

[cookie_monster]

If this works - I'll be be round with the beer

 

Maybe delay ordering the skip.

 

 

(I'd already tried using K5400s but they didn't work properly)

 

 

 

PLEASE PLEASE tell us how you set them up (or do you work for HP Marketing )

 

regards

 

Simon

 

@cookie-monster

 

These are without doubt the worst designed BusInkjet that HP have ever produced

 

But if the K550 drivers make them work (I'm talking basics like set them up as shared printer on server and deploy to workstations!) then maybe they can be redeemed!

 

 

 

I've changed the driver to the K550 on one printer this morning, ok so far i'll let you know.

[cookie_monster]

Well that didn't seem to work. The only thing that works so far is setting it to draft, the quality is ok and it then works.

 

 

Can anyone recommend a similar featured printer that actually works?

 

Thanks.

[SimpleSi]

I'll get to a 8000 school this afternoon and try it there.

 

At the same school, I ended up installing the thing as a direct network printer from each computer and then using a postinstall script to set reg entries so it knew it had A4 paper!!! :(

 

They def put a boy on the drivers for this one!

 

regards

 

Simon

[SimpleSi]

Doesn't work for me

 

Downloaded driver for K550 and ran it on server (w2k3) to extract the files.

 

Went into add printers - created a standard tcp/ip port - browsed to find drivers - all seemed to install OK.

 

But shows offline in printer status

 

Tried test print - nothing came out

 

(Printer still working direct from a workstation)

 

 

regards

 

Simon

[contink]

Just a point that may or may not help...

 

Before I went with the K550 I used the Kyocera Driver Deleter to wipe all traces of the old HP K5400 drives (including the OEM inf), rebooted the server and then installed the K550 driver only version.

 

It's a guess but you may find that picking K550 or not the later driver versions may still influence things and cause problems... There's also the possibility that the old driver on workstations is still an issue too...

 

Just a thought.

[cookie_monster]

Ok we need another printer and I don't want to buy another of these, can anyone recommend a similar featured printer that's not HP? (I'm looking for tried and tested )

 

Thanks.

[Toby77]

Ok we need another printer and I don't want to buy another of these, can anyone recommend a similar featured printer that's not HP? (I'm looking for tried and tested )

 

Thanks.

 

One of my retail customers is after a few hundred of these, I hadn't really heard any bad reports on this till now. Getting slightly concerned at the moment I've spent the last half hour or so going through Canon, Brother and Epson. I'll be honest im really struggling to find an alternate as well!!

[cookie_monster]

One of my retail customers is after a few hundred of these, I hadn't really heard any bad reports on this till now. Getting slightly concerned at the moment I've spent the last half hour or so going through Canon, Brother and Epson. I'll be honest im really struggling to find an alternate as well!!

 

 

We have three and they've been a nightmare so far, the other users in this thread seem to have more than I do and they have similar problems so it’s not specific to my servers/network. The HP’s are working as stand alone printers at the moment as they just refuse to work properly when shared from a 2008 server. I'm going to try sharing one from an XP box tomorrow.

 

If I was you I’d seriously consider getting your client to try a couple before buying a large amount.

[cookie_monster]

Well after two hours on the phone to HP they seem convinced that there's a problem, they had us try several different drivers.

 

They're now going to send out another unit with newer firmware, I’ll keep you posted.

[jtotheb]

Have you tried turning off bidirectional support on the port tab? I had the half page/partially printed bottom rows issue with network connected K5400s until doing that.

[cookie_monster]

The bidirectional support tab was greyed out even as an admin.

[contink]

Hey folks...

 

It's a bit off topic but can I just ask... If I was to get one of these units in and then troubleshoot the cr*p out of it, would you be interested in helping meet some of the cost towards the actual unit itself? Or better yet, does someone have a unit they can courier over rather than hit with a hammer? (much as the latter might be more satisfying )

 

I'd be happy to give this a serious testing and see if there are some solutions that others haven't had a chance to figure out, but I'm not overly keen on the idea of purchasing a unit to work on if it's a loss leader from the get go...

 

Thoughts welcome...

[contink]

I've spent the last half hour or so going through Canon, Brother and Epson. I'll be honest im really struggling to find an alternate as well!!

 

In fairness, the market is going to hell in a handbasket...

 

Epson printer build quality was already going downhill about 18 - 24 months ago but Canon and HP have followed suit with Canon licensing many of their designs to HP to be built into different cases. Build quality on Canon printers has dropped considerably which is a crying shame because they had the best printers, despite the issues presented when it came to CIS units.

 

The bottom line is that the Inkjet printer market is being treated like a proper throwaway item way beyond what it was before.

 

If I was going to suggest any printers now most would be units that have been refurbished rather than brand new. Unfortunately with the advent of Windows 7 the manufacturers are not producing suitable native drivers so many need to be installed and run in WinXP Compatible mode (yes, it is possible).

 

 

If that wasn't bad enough, you have companies like Lexmark adding RFID chips to their cartridges so they can't be bypassed (well.. yet!), Epson locking down utilities to stop waste ink counters being reset and Canon continuing their chip encryption program...

 

So, frankly there's EVERY reason to buy older, tried and tested units over the newer disposable items...

 

 

 

Yep, something of a rant but when I think of all that unnecessary landfill, it's common sense but in reverse...