HP Deskjet 3820 problems

[Mr N8]

As it says in the title, I have an HP Deskjet 3820. Its just a cheap printer that I picked up for some people to print text documents.

I've run through the entire troubleshooting guide with no luck.

The printer starts up, but then goes through a lot more "testing" than any of the other of this model that I have. The document spools fine, but the job always fails. I know that the paper feed works and the ink is fine. I've used both USB and parallel cables to try and print. When I hook it up, everything detects and installs (WinXP Pro). When the job is sent directly to the printer (instead of spooling), it immediately fails.

I guess I'm pretty sure its a hardware issue with the printer. Does anyone know if I can replace the interface ports, or if maybe its a different problem? I know this is an unusual one, but any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

NAte

[mairving]

HP printers are becoming more and more problematic to install. The HP install wizard doesn't help that much either. Other than the obvious thing, which I have done before, of installing the USB printer on the Parallel port (which is actually quite easy to do if you use the XP printer setup wizard), I don't know what else to tell you. You may run the HP printer setup wizard, let it fail and it should remove any files or drivers left from previous installs. Then try the XP setup wizard and point it to the HP driver directory.

[Mr N8]

I guess I should have said that the printer was working for about 1 1/2 months. I don't know how much printing he did with it, but I know that it did work at one time. Is it worthless to mess with this printer, or not?

[mairving]

The printer sells for $79 at NewEgg, so probably not. I have used the 5550, which is a little more with pretty good results.

[glc]

You have to spool - you can't print directly to the printer, it's a Winprinter with no brains.

[Mr N8]

Heh, you're right, GLC. I've dealt so exclusively with Laser printers for a while that I forget these things. I think I've come to the conclusion that this printer was meant to be thrown away when it had problems. Tried to remove the chases to get to the controller board, but its nearly impossible. I guess I'm just going to pick up a HP 1200 laser printer.

[glc]

The last Deskjet that had brains, ram, and true DOS support was the 895C.