Printer Support

Computer Care: If your printer needs attention, be careful with the ink

By Arthur Glazerglazer.tech@gmail.com
POSTED: May 31, 2013 10:46 p.m.

Every few weeks I hear a panicky plea from across the house, “Honey, the printer’s not working.” So I bellow back, “ Did you try rebooting the computer?”

After a few minutes I usually hear a sheepish, “Never mind.”

But this morning, that fix-all failed to rectify the situation. It often heals many computer ailments and does it quickly. However, this time I actually had to perform minor supplementary surgery on our HP printer.

We had a paper jam, which often is not a big deal. I learned early on not to extract the sheet of paper in question from the front of the machine. I ruined a perfectly good and relatively new printer by trying to force a piece of paper out backward from the feeder tray. I won’t do that again.

Most, if not all printers have an escape hatch on the rear of the machine. Some pull straight out, others have clips or dials. Whichever yours has, my suggestion is to learn how to remove it when you (or your spouse) are not in panic mode.

When there is an actual paper jam, your printer will advise you of the situation. Open the back door and s-l-o-w-l-y pull the sheet out, trying not to rip it.

If it does come out in pieces, use a can of compressed air to blow the remnants out from both sides of the feed. Hold the can upright to avoid the liquid (cold) propellant from getting on your printer components. You may need tweezers or needle-nose pliers to extract small pieces left on the roller or gears.

When you’re sure the suspect paper is gone, replace the back door you removed the same way you took it out.

I added some ink to my black cartridge with a kit that I use. Depending on what type of cartridge you have, it may be an easy task — or not. I refill mine with a hypodermic-type needle that sucks ink from a bottle and transfers it to the cartridge via a small pad.

If you do refill your own ink, do it in the sink and keep paper towels handy. Should you overfill one, it could get messy.

In my case, I left the printer unused for over a week and that allowed the ink to coagulate on the print head, clogging it.

Should this happen to you, the next step is to run your printer’s cleaning utilities. Look in Control Panel or Printer and Devices section for your (default) printer. Locate the tools section, sometimes under Utilities tab, sometimes under the Advanced tab.

What you are ultimately looking for is the Clean Printhead utility. Run it once and see if the readout is clear. If not, run it again.

In a worst-case-scenario, you may need to dampen a paper towel with some isopropyl alcohol and wipe the head with it to remove a hardened ink scab.

Use extreme caution when working with printer ink. Love may not always be forever, but ink is. Try not to get it on anything and work in a safe area (i.e., not on the rug or bed). It will come off of your hands with mechanic’s soap, but if you get it on your favorite shirt, you’ll soon be finding a new one.

You may also need to run the Printhead Alignment tool at this time. If your output is skewed, follow the instructions your printer will give you. It’s a matter of choosing the best looking output on the test page that it prints.

To avoid future paper jams, be sure to use fresh, dry paper. Keep it stored it its wrapper, as humidity will soften it, leading to jams.

Make sure the edges of the stack are even and that there are no bent corners on the feed end. Don’t overstack the tray. See your printer’s documentation for the tray’s capacity.

While you are in printer repair mode, check for an updated driver.

Go to the printer manufacturer’s website (hp.com, epson.com, etc) and look for the section that is usually labeled support, downloads or drivers. Find your exact model and then choose your operating system (Windows 7, 8 or whatever you have). Some sites may ask if it’s 32- or 64-bit. 

Right-click on your Computer icon on your desktop , choose Properties and look for this information.

An updated printer driver may enhance your printing experience or simply fix a constant error you may have been experiencing.

After the download is complete, open the file and just follow the instructions. The entire process should take two to three minutes. If you choose the software package with the driver, it will take longer.

Be sure to reboot when you’re done.

Don’t be in a hurry to toss what you may believe is a broken printer. Jams can be fixed and heads can be cleaned.

Arthur Glazer is a freelance writer and computer technician in Gainesville. His column appears biweekly on the Business page and on gainesvilletimes.com.

Printer Problems?

Computer Care: Printer glitch? Best to start over

	By Arthur Glazerglazer.tech@gmail.com

	POSTED: February 23, 2013 2:00 a.m.

	While recently attempting to print a document on a printer I’ve had installed for over a year, Windows suddenly advised me that I in fact, had no printer installed. I could see the Officejet across the room; I just used it the night before and my wife had printed something on it earlier that morning, so I knew it worked. Rather than going into panic mode, I did the same thing I did the last time this happened: I reinstalled the printer. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, this seems to be a common occurrence. This is a relatively easy task, yet not quite as straightforward as one might assume. The first thing to do is remove the USB cable, then remove the printer from your computer. Go to the “Printers” window from either the “Start Menu” or “Control Panel.” Right-click on the printer icon, choose to delete it and then reboot the system. Your printer is now uninstalled. Next, find an updated version of the printer driver and software package on the manufacturer’s website. This is better than using the CD that came with the printer, as it may have some bug fixes and enhancements that the disc lacks. It never hurts to check the Web for a newer version. That bug fix may stop your printer from crashing next time. Look for a “Support,” “Downloads” or “Drivers” section on the website (www.hp.com,www.epson.com, etc.). It will either be a hot link — maybe off to the side or a tab at the top of the page. After you find it, type in or choose your device model and then choose your operating system. Next, either just choose to download the driver to get your printer running again, or get the whole package with greeting card and calendar maker and all. Run the installer after you download it. Don’t plug in the USB cable until you are prompted to do so by the software. Even if you are connecting a wireless printer, it may ask you to temporarily connect via a USB cable, so have one ready. With a wireless installation, choose the 802.11 option and be ready to recognize your network name so you can choose it. After the installation, reboot again and go back to the printer window to be sure yours is listed and chosen as the default. Right-click and choose “Default,” if not. Next, test your printer. Right-click the icon again and choose “Properties” and click on “Print Test Page” or just try to print a document. If you’ve had this device for a while, it wouldn’t hurt to clean and align the print head. Old ink coagulates on the head, degrading the print quality and sometimes stopping it completely from printing. All printer software has these utilities built-in. Look in the “Properties” area or for a “Tools” or “Utilities” tab. This maintenance may take a while, use up some ink and a few sheets of paper, but will absolutely improve the quality of your print output. To save some ink, change your setting from the default to “Draft” mode. It uses a lot less ink, prints much faster and chances are you won’t notice the lack of ink. If printing photos though, go for the full amount and choose the “Photo” option under quality. Also be sure to change the paper type to glossy, if that’s what you’re using. While in the settings area, familiarize yourself with some of the other options there. Aside from changing paper type and ink quality, you can choose to print in grayscale, in black only or set up for pamphlet printing. This will print on both sides of the paper with two pages per sheet. You can also choose to set up poster or banner printing here, using anything from four to 25 sheets of paper. If you have a long list of docs that failed to print, you may have a jammed print queue that’s stopping the device from printing. To confirm this, right-click on your printer icon in the task bar and choose to open the device. You should be able to see all of your stalled prints. You may be able to highlight each one and choose “Cancel,” but they may be stuck there. To fix this, open a command prompt box by typing “cmd” (without quotes) from the search box or Run dialog. Then type “net stop spooler” (no quotes) and hit the Enter key. Wait for a confirmation from the system, then type “net start spooler” and again hit Enter. This clears the queue by stopping the service, then starting it again. Printers are just like everything else mechanical: Anything can go wrong. On the grand scheme of things that can go wrong with computer systems, this is really not that big of a deal. It shouldn’t cost you anything (unless you’re out of ink) and the time involved is minimal. Including the download, you should have remedied this situation in about an hour. Take a deep breath and say, “At least I don’t have to reformat my hard drive.” Arthur Glazer is a freelance writer and computer technician in Gainesville. His column appears biweekly on the Business page and on gainesvilletimes.com.

The Cost of Ink

Computer Care: Don't let printers soak you for high cost of ink

By Arthur Glazer
arthur@glazerthepctech.com

POSTED March 6, 2010 1 a.m.

Not all printers are created equal. Nor are the inks they use. The main thing to consider when you buy a printer is what the cost would be for replacement cartridges. And not all of them are the same.

I recommend buying a printer with more than a black and a tri-color cartridge. With them, if you run out of yellow, the whole cartridge is trash. My Epson Photo Stylus has six cartridges, each at a (retail) cost of about $15. When yellow runs out, that's what I replace.

I also have a Lexmark wireless All-in One that I failed to research properly prior to buying it. I now know that when the color runs out, it will not print at all, not even in black. It's a good question to ask at the store.

Some printers cost less than $50. They come with a starter cartridge that is usually less than half full. But to get a refill for it could cost the same as the printer itself. It's like the razors at the drug store. They give you the handle and a blade and then charge $20 for four more blades.

Most of us use either ink jet or laser printers; some businesses still use dot matrix. There are photo printers, wide formats, all-in-ones and wireless. You can now purchase a printer, scanner, fax, copier combo with wireless for just more than $100. Again, the replacement ink is where they get you. But don't be intimidated by the manufacturers telling you that you need to use costly OEM (original equipment manufacture) ink only. You don't.

There are after-market cartridges that are fine. You can also use kits to refill them yourself. A $20 kit from the supermarket will fill 10 cartridges. Considering most ink jet replacements cost $20-$30, that's quite a savings.

The stores that sell the new expensive OEM products also offer alternatives. Office Depot for example, will give you a $3 credit per used cartridge that you bring in and then offer a 10 percent discount on new purchases. You can bring in five per day.

Walgreens will refill your cartridge for $12.99 and Cartridge World will sell you a pre-used refilled cartridge, refill yours or provide an OEM for you.

Another alternative is bulk ink systems. Instead of have three to six cartridges with 20 ML of ink each, you could have tubes running to bottles adjacent to your printer, each holding 60 ML (or more). You can get more than three times the ink for less than a quarter of the price. Again, that's a good savings.

There are a few more things you should know about ink and cartridges. When your printer tells you that you need ink, you don't. Not yet, anyway. I can use mine for two weeks after I get the initial warning. I keep using it until the printout has white spaces in it.

Remember, HP, Canon, Lexmark, Kodak and Epson make money from ink, not from printers. So don't be a hurry to toss a cartridge that may be 20 percent full. But if you let it run completely dry, you could damage the printer. Monitor the ink levels carefully.

When you do replace a cartridge, do it soon after it is used up. The residual ink will dry on both the print head and the cartridge if you don't swap them out as soon as they are empty. They can be cleaned and some kits will even provide a solvent to use for just that. But it's extra work that can be avoided.

Most cartridges can be refilled at least three or four times, often times even more than that. There are certain types that can't be refilled at all.

The Internet is another place to find deals on ink. A good online resource is inkguides.com, an independent site full of useful information about ink for your printer. It will direct you to sites like 123refills.net, 4inkjets.com, inkcartridges.com and others. Some even offer free shipping along with heavy discounts.

A great piece of related software is Ink Saver from inksaver.com. It is better than using draft mode for reducing ink costs. For each document you are about to print, you'll get a pop-up with a slider, asking what percent of ink you want to save on that document. The last I saw, it was about $30, with a trial available.

The manufacturers all make $49 printers as well as $849 models. Some may use ink that is better for photos or that is quicker drying. Some may include bells and whistles that others don't have. Some have a fax incorporated in it, while others are wireless.

Just like Internet Explorer and Firefox, both get you to the Internet; all printers will get the job done. Some may do it better or cheaper than others. Some last longer or have more gadgets.

The bottom line is, get what you need and what you can afford. But don't be bullied into buying expensive ink.

Arthur Glazer is a freelance writer and computer technician in Gainesville. His column appears biweekly. Arthur welcomes your computer questions and ideas for future columns.