"Here... shove your horn in it!"

No, they would have set it on the bench, printed several pages and said "no problem found, unit prints properly" Then they would ask you, "did you have the power on?" :-)

Mikek

Data loss. Check your connecting cable.

Data loss. Loose Centronics parallel connector is the most common culprit. I double that you're using a serial or ADB connection. The JetDirect cards are a different horror story, but since you didn't mention it, I'll assume that you don't have one installed. That leaves a parallel cable.

My version is "That which is most obviously correct, beyond any need of checking, is usually the problem". Check the cable.

Cold is usually not a problem. However, going from cold to warm will cause moisture to condense on everything inside the printer. This is very bad for the toner and optics. Some bigger HP LJ printers and all Brother laser printers have moisture sensors.

My guess(tm) is you wiggled the parallel cable, or flexed the formatter board. The only items in sockets on the formatter are the RAM chips. Those will usually produce an error message on power on. It might also be a crappy soldering job on the larger chips, but those will also produce an error message. That leaves the parallel connector, which will NOT produce an error message.

It would have been working when you arrived at the repair shop. It happens all the time.

I'm about to recycle all my HP LJ III and 4 parts because nobody has wanted one repaired in about 3 years. Want a box of HP 4 maintenance parts and pieces? You pay shipping.

Notice that he didn't say that we know the RIGHT answers. Knowing the wrong answers does not help much.

Also, notice that he knows the right answers, as in plural. More than one answer is what lawyers, doctors, and consultants do by habit. Give the client more than one answer, and force them to make the final decision. If they decide wrong, then it's the client's fault.

Sigh. Spelling chequer on full auto. That should be "I doubt that..."

Also, photo of LJ 5M formatter.

No offense, Jeff, but I've been servicing electronic equipment for 55+ years. You're assuming I don't know the basics.

The cable is a USB cable. Windows 7 has USB support for printers. When I bought this computer over a years ago, I bought a neat little adapter that supports this protocol for parallel ports. It's been working nicely for over a year.

I did, indeed, wonder whether the connection was bad. I checked at the computer and printer. Everything was tight. I use a short USB cable to extend the adapter's cable, which otherwise wouldn't be long enough. While monitoring the printer under Devices & Printers, I brought the connection at this point, and got an immediate "Printer Offline" response. This confirmed that the computer and printer were communicating, on at least the control level.

"Just to prove a point..." I just turned on the printer and printed a page. It worked. This strongly suggests -- but does not prove -- that the problem is "fixed".

"Claro", as the guy in the crazy-generous ad says.

Please contact me directly, and let me know (in general -- you needn't go into detail) what you have. I wouldn't mind a spare fuser assembly.

You are quite missing the point. What Dr Land said is one of the most-profound statements about the scientific process ever made.

We can come up with all sorts of answers -- but without the right questions, we have no way of separating the right from the wrong, the useful from the useless, etc. This is why the lunatic fringe of audiophilia gets into so much trouble -- the assumption that it has the right answers, when it is actually speculating.

I have the same problem. I often type in the wrong-but-similar word.

I did, indeed, wonder whether the connection was bad. I checked at the computer and printer. Everything was tight. I use a short USB cable to extend the adapter's cable, which otherwise wouldn't be long enough. While monitoring the printer under Devices & Printers, I brought the connection at this point, and got an immediate "Printer Offline" response. This confirmed that the computer and printer were communicating, on at least the control level.

That should be "BROKE the connection at this point". Ouch.

No offense intended. I try to explain my logic in a manner that anyone can understand and try not to engage in a personal discussion where the reader might not be fully informed as to what's happening. I also have the problem of writing to different target audiences. If I apply the technobabble thickly and aim for the experienced reader, I lose the beginners and those with limited experience. If I aim for a general audience, as I did here, I insult readers with more substantial experince. Can't win.

I've used USB to parallel adapters with good success. In this case, the alleged data loss would be at the parallel cable connector. Many users allow the wire "ears" that secure the parallel connector to remain loose, causing the connector to wiggle loose. As I mumbled, I've seen it before.

In my never humble opinion, if the printer does a sucessful self test, the computah is apparently functional, and the fault acts like there's data loss (blank pages, printing PCL source instead of formatted PCL, etc), then there's something wrong between the computah and the printah.

Ok, but did you run a test print after moving the USB to parallel adapter and extension cable? To the best of my knowledge, the only thing that will NOT produce a front panel error code is a badly connected parallel interface.

Yep. It's easy to prove that something doesn't work. All it takes is one failure. Proving that something is working is more complex. You have to test literally everything. What few returns I get is usually the result of not testing everything.

Huh? I haven't seen a TV advertisement since I switched to watching Netflix. What's a Claro?

I probably have a good used fuser. I probably also have some ethernet print server cards. I'll seperate out the LJ 4/5m stuff and send you a list.

Which was exactly the point of confusion. It's like Dr McCoy in "The Man Trap" -- "There's nothing wrong with him -- he ought to get up off the table -- but he's dead."

Remember that not only did yanking the cable produce an immediate "off line", but the printer simply swallowed the input (which was shown by the Ready and Form Feed lights blinking), then did nothing. These prove, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the cable was working fine.

This left the printer, and more specifically, the firmware (on the assumption that the printer has error messages for just about anything hardware-related that could go wrong). The obvious problem -- that the SIMMs weren't properly seated -- appears to have been correct. But the question of how you could lose access to part of the firmware memory, without crashing the printer, suggests that the fix was coincidental.

It's part of an ad for Vonage flat-rate overseas calling. It's easier to show than to describe.

"Claro" means "clear". In Spanish, "claro que si" means "of course".

Thanks.