Well, I have got a top five email that just came in from Brawley and Brawley is a member of our community at large. Watches our videos on youtube and stops by in the chat room every once in a while. I guess he goes by the nick name Jameson and I can now read it.
His top five ways to fix your own Inkjet printer, fair enough. I work as the technology coordinator for a school in Alabama. This is not me. I have never been to Alabama. This is Jameson who is writing this. I also tried to get my users to get used to the idea of using network printers so they can share in small workers to save money, paper, ink etc. But many of my users, most of them are teachers insist on having their own color Inkjet printers on the desk. Since I have had this job for almost eight years now, I come to expect similar issues relating to these Inkjet printers and wish to share some of my solutions with you and your viewers. They are not just my viewers, they are now yours as well.
The top five ways to fix common issues with Inkjet Printers:
Number one, slam the lead. Well this may sound violent. It fixed the classic my printer will not print, help email that I often get. Some models of printers specifically the HP Desk Jet 5650 had a lead that sometimes just will not shut firmly. Sometimes it closes slightly off-center and a firm closing about lead that covers the ink chamber tends to fix to it. It also gets a chemical reaction from the user when they think I am going to work some techno magic and end up fixing it with the caveman approach. Check the lead first.
Number two, check the ink. Many printer manufacturers have made it very easy to tell which ink goes where using a variety of numbers, colors, and shapes on the ink cartridge in its caddy. Yet, even the best of us have been known to put them in wrong. Check to make sure the colored cartridges is in the colored caddy, the black and white one. I think he means just the black one. Are there white ink cartridges? Anyway, it is in its proper caddy. Make sure it is for the proper printer model as well.
But one thing people fail to realize is that ink cartridges do go bad and have expiration dates printed on them. I discovered this was a real issue with many of the departments of my schools decided to save few box by using recycled and refilled ink cartridges exclusively. When many of our Inkjets started functioning strangely, I checked the ink after exhausting all other efforts. Sure enough, they are using recycled ink in a cartridge that expired two years ago. I popped in a new brand name of a pricier cartridge and the issue was fixed.
Number three, do a power hot K Po K, oh, the hokey pokey. Do the power hokey pokey, I need more right now. I developed this routine over time to the point where many of my users now know it by heart and can fix the issue themselves. Now I am still trying to work on making it into a real song. Sometimes an Inkjet or any printer for that matter just needs a good reboot. In the same way that rebooting your computer seems to fix almost do anything. Hold the power button down on the printer while it is on. By folding it down, unplug the printer’s power. Once the printer’s power is unplugged, the power cord is unplugged, continue to hold down the power button for five or six seconds. After about ten or 15 seconds of doing nothing, plug the printer back in, press the power button. This solves an amazing amount of issues and even easier solution that works many times in certain situations is just unplug the printer from its power source and then plug it back in.
Some buildings like the one I work in are grounded very poorly. After a good southern thunderstorm in an Alabama summer, it seem like half of my Inkjet simply did not turn on no matter how hard one might press the power button. Unplugging the printer and plugging it back in seem to discharge some sort of mysterious static electricity bubble that prevented it from getting power. I cannot explain this in anyway. I just know it has worked many times.
Number four, learn to speak printer ease. Many times the printer simply tells you what is wrong with it, with the series of lights. You just need to learn how to decode the message. Most printer of many manufacturers list what these lights are and the blinking sequences mean on their website. Finding out what those lights mean can help you realize that the problem maybe nothing more than a sheet of paper jammed up inside the printer. The website will also tell you or even illustrate how to correct the issue.
Number five, saving the worst for last. Reinstall the latest printer drivers. Yes is that a geldrop card that any computer tech throws down when all else fails. But seriously, printer drivers can become corrupt for any number of reasons and uninstalling your printer and installing the latest drivers. So uninstalling the printer software and reinstalling it, find the manufacturer’s website can do nothing but good things for you even if it does not fix the problem at hand. Many times the problem can be fixed by popping in the CD that came with your printer. If your CD Rom is set to auto play the CD, sure it gives you the option to uninstall or even reinstall the drivers. You will not get the latest drivers that way but you will get the original drivers that your printer came with and the ones that was using when it works properly.
As always, I look forward to your comments and additional tips. I love your youtube videos and tips, keep it up. JB of Techtipsforparents.org, Techthipsforparents.org and I got to tell you, I love this list. I do not know if this is really going to save me from dealing with Ponzy’s Inkjet rolls large because that is related to pricing but it is a good list nonetheless.
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