HP Printer Problems

[RocketManLP19]

I have a friend who had an HP 610 printer. One day, it randomly in the middle of printing a powerpoint presentation, the printer went nuts and started slamming the print head against the side of the case and obviously stopped printing. After that, it would occasionally print for a short time and then do the same things all over again.

She wanted a new printer anyways, and thinking the 610 was toast, she bought a new HP 920. It printed fine a few times after the driver software was installed, but the next day when she turned the computer back on and went to print again, the 920 started doing the same exact thing.

One printer doing it I can understand if it was worn out / broken / whatever... but the new one doing it too? I'm at a loss as to what could be causing the problem. We're going to exchange the 920 and try a new one, but I really don't want to ruin any more printers if it's a software issue that I have overlooked.

She's running Windows 98 on an HP system, the printer is the only device on the parallel port, and as far as I can tell all the old printer software is removed and the 920 software is the only drivers installed for printing.

Thanks in advance,
Paul

[doubledragon5]

Have you tried to contact Hp before you go and buy another printer? If you registered your printer it is good for one year free replacement and support. www.hp.com

[Iman74]

That's true, if it's under warranty get HP to help you out.
On a different note: I'm a former HP Tech and I love HP's. I buy nothing but HP Deskjets and I can tell you this that is a "common" problem with HP Deskjets. We actually were able to fix that by cleaning the belt the cartridge slides on with alcohol. But that doesn't always do it. We never could figure out why it does that, it just does. If you do decide to purchase another printer I say get the HP 990C it's killer and it has an infrared port which I use all the time w/my laptop.

[RocketManLP19]

Thanks for your posts... she wanted to replace the 610 anyhow with a higher resolution printer, so it was out the door anyhow. The 920 was just bought 3 days ago so we'll exchange it at Best Buy rather than deal with the warranty already.

I had read some posts about cleaning the strip that the cartridges move back and forth on, and I'm going to try that when she gets home from school today. I just can't understand why that would be screwed up after the first night she had it. I mean... her 610 goes nuts, she buys a new printer, then after one day it's doing the same thing... I was thinking a software / driver issue that was causing it to slam the cartridges against the side of the printer.

Thanks!