Nothing will print

Hey guys, a Hp DeskJet 722c printer refuses to print anything. It is connected to lpt1 port, and seems to be in working condition. I tried power cycling it, connecting with a different cable: nothing. It's on, and the printers and faxes window says it is the default printer and that it is ready to be used. However, it fails to print from anywhere, including a test page. Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks

 

If you just replaced Ink, make sure you removed the plastic strip covering ink port of the cartridge.


Here's Link at HP, FAQ's etc. for your model (Start with the first three):
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/documentIndex?dlc=en&lc=en&product=57565&lang=en&cc=us&

 

hold down the powerbutton on the front of the printer and press the paper feed button 4 times this wil give you a printer test page this will determine wether the problem is being caused by the pc or the printer .

 

It prints the test page just fine when I press the power button and feed paper 4 times. However, it still does not prin anything from notepad, or word or anything for that matter. The connections are all secure, the printer is detected. I will try a driver reinistall, but keep the suggestions coming. Thx for the ones so far.

 

Have you tried booting into DOS and hitting [Print Screen]?

If that sucessfully sends a screen dump to the printer, you can probably assume that there's something fouled up in your operating system. A driver uninstall/re-install might work.

Unfortunately, the converse is not necessarily true. If that test doesn't work, you haven't learned very much.

 

Does it have a usb connector?
If it does try plugging it into a usb port.
And if that doesn't work get yourself a canon i550 printer (i have one and it works great,plus it has usb print abilities).

 

there is no usb connector on this thing. there may be something wrong with the lpt port, because i plugged it ou tand back in, and windows didnt detect a thing.

 

Then i'd say it's time to ditch that hp printer and get your self a canon i550 because their ink cartridges are cheaper then hp plus you get usb print abilities which is cool plus it's a cheaper priced printer.

 

A parallel port isn't very smart. I doubt that Windows would notice a printer being unplugged until you tried to print to it.

 

When i try printing to it, it doesnt even do anything, it just lines up on the que...when i try to print a test page through windows, its just gives me an error printing (no number of error, just...says error)

 

Canons are great but you would be beter off geting an ip1500 .
i dont think they even make the "i" range anymore.

 

Most likely your HP has died, its very sad and we should have a moment of silence for it ... done, this happened to me once, as i mainly deal with hp printers because I get them so cheap. Printing fine one day the next nothing, with no rhyme or reason. I like my hp printers, they work for a long time, but they are disposeable. I also like parallel printers because it frees up that usb port, and if you only have two, its pretty important.
If you need high res photos, buy a cannon,
If you need high speed I think epson is faster
If you just need to print shit, buy the cheapest $40 printer you can find and toss it out again in a year or two.

 

Hp's are very expecive to run second only to lexmark.

All printers now run at about the same sped but epsons take so so long to start up plus with an epson you have the problem that they are prone to head blockage and once the head is blocked on an epson you cant replace it or less than the price of a brand new printer.

Most printers in they respective price brackets are the same quality for photos.

Canons are the cheapest for ink and the most realiable.

All printers hp or not will only come with usb connections now unless you are going for top of the range.

 

The head blockage happens with remanufactured ink, and if it it has been sitting for a while, like a blood clot. Hp's are cheap to buy, the ink is expensive but they handle universal ink better then many other printers (I never tried refilling a cannon) yes most printers come with usb. I was just saying the reason I liked the parallel side. I also dissagree with each printer having the same photo quality, HP's are blotchy, they have ink application problems too much here not enough there. They are also sensitive to the paper used, they have better quality on hp paper. which relates to your point about being expensive to run. Black ink on plain paper, they are efficient, cheap and the quality is fine. Cannons are higher up the food chain in terms of price, ink is cheaper but more difficult to find. (many convience stores carry hp stuff) staples, or office max usualy has them. The bottom line is to price out what you are looking for and go for it knowing, you will be buying it again.

 

I have had 7 years of experiance filling canons lexmarks epsons and all other brands i am a printer engineer and i my personal opinion i would say that hp are one of the worst for handeling universal ink as they block so offten .

I must see 40 people a week with screwed up hp cartridges because they have filled it with universal ink (i would never recomend universal ink anyway).

 

Well your seven years tops my one, so the guy should buy a cannon. I on the other hand will stick to my expensive HP's.

 

I wasnt trying to be mean ive just seen some f***ed up things

 

Not likely. russian master posted earlier to say that he was able to print a test page using the printer controls. The problem is that Windows can't talk to the printer.

russian master -- that could be either a hardware problem or a software problem. Have you tried a screen dump from DOS yet? If you can do that, it's not a hardware problem. (See my post of 17:43 yesterday.)

As far as I know, the "Print Screen" function does not rely on an operating system. It will function with no OS loaded at all -- if the hardware is functioning properly and the printer is connected to LPT1. You can also try printing a BIOS setup screen or the BIOS boot screen that way. For the latter, just hit "Pause" to stop the boot process when the BIOS screen appears, then hit "Print Screen".

If you're just looking for an excuse to replace the printer, go for it. A discussion of which printer to go for should be the subject of a separate thread.

 

Im sorry i got torn away from the subject but the advice about the printer replacement was untrue and i felt it had to be rectified.

I agree with rob m it doesnt sound like a printer issue thats why i said to run the printer test earlier.

Have you tried unplugging the printer deleting it from the printer and faxes menu then reinstalling?

That works 90% of the time for me.

 

Sorry for the double post but i just had a thought.

Have you tried printer via ctrl+p and looking at the selected printer i have seen it in the past when even though you have a default printer set it will still try to print to the document image writer.

i hope ive helped.

 

I had the HP 722 and it was a good printer. My son has it now. As I recall there was some diagnostic that allowed you to test communications for 1 way and bi-directional. There was a tools program that installed with the software..
What OS are you running? This printer was initially for 3.x, 95 and I think NT. When 98 came out, you needed a new driver. XP has the driver. Have you tried a reinstall of the driver in XP. Maybe point to the XP cd in case the installed driver it wants is corrupt.

It is strictly a parallel printer.

Also, when I uninstalled/reinstalled my printer multiple times, in the printer software, I had multiple choices for the printer (Do not no why tho). (HP722c1)(HP722c2)etc.

Runner789