How to determine the problem of your HP printer.

When your or your customer’s printer quits to work, you need to figure out the problem first. HP is the most common brand, their printer has very good interface to communicate with the user. I am writing this guide based on the HP brand printers.

Here are some clues to help you.

First, you need to figure out the problem first. There are some kind of common problems you may encounter:

1, Paper jamming;

2, Poor printing quality;

3, Printer error.

Paper Jam.

If you got paper jam, first you need to know where is the paper jam. It can be in the paper tray, in the registration assembly, under the cartridge, in the fuser or in the output bin. There is another chance, there is no paper jam in the printer at all.
If there is no paper in the printer, but the printer reports paper jam, mostly 13.01, then it’s the printer pick up roller or separation pad has problem, they can’t pick up the paper. If the printer reports paper jam before you submit any job, then there must be something in the paper path blocking the sensor.
If the paper is in the registration assembly which is in the printer before the toner cartridge, most of the case is the cartridge not right, try another cartridge.
If the paper is under the cartridge, most of the case is the fuser defective.
If the paper is in the fuser assembly, most of the case is the fuser; but sometime it may be caused by the second page mispick up, and the printer stops the first page in the fuser. To determine which case you are in, submit a job with one page only.
If the paper is in the output bin, which is not common, it should be caused by the delivery roller/assembly, like HP 4, 4+, 5. HP 4000, 4100, 4200, 4300, 4250, 4350. For most of the HP models, you can flap down the back cover, then the paper will come out to back, then you can figure out where is the problem. For HP 8100/8150/8000, you can set up and let the paper out to the left side.

Poor printing quality:

If the printer can’t print well, it should be caused by the toner cartridge, fuser assembly or the scanner assembly. First you can change the toner cartridge, this is the easiest way to do. If it prints the same result with different cartridge, then it’s not the cartridge problem. If you don’t have any spare cartridge to switch, you can do a half print diagnosis, here is the steps to do it:
1, Submit a job for one page to the printer;
2, Feed the paper from the manual tray which you can see the motion of the paper;
3, Once the job submitted, the paper moved in the printer, open the top cover, stop the printer working;
4, Carefully take out the cartridge, the paper should be under the cartridge, before the fuser, carefully take the paper out. The printing on the paper is not fused yet, so don’t touch the printing,
5, Check out the printing, if it’s clear, good, then the problem will come from the fuser. If not good, then it should be the cartridge or the scanner assembly. Scanner assembly only can be bad if it’s in the dusty environment and dust is in the assembly, covers on the mirrors, in this case, you may need to change a new scanner assembly, it’s hard to clean up the mirrors in the assembly. If the scanner is multifunction, the printer should report error.
If it’s the fuser problem, you can just change another fuser assembly. If you want to save money, you can buy the fuser rebuilt kit to rebuild the fuser by yourself. Most common problem from the fuser is: Side or middle lines, ghosting, shadow, or not fusing properly.

Error code:

There are so many error codes, I can’t write to much about this, you always can search for the code, there are some common codes for your quick reference:
Error 13, paper jam; 13.01, 13.02, 13.03—paper input; 13.20—in the registration or output;
Error 50, fuser error; 50.01, 50.02. Be aware: For HP 8100/8150, if you have 50 error, most of the case is the low power supply failure, not the fuser itself.
Error 79. Communication problem, check the network card first.

Thanks for reading. Hope this will help you!

One thought on “How to determine the problem of your HP printer.”

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