LaserJet P2015 Printer memory upgrade

[hankjeff]

In HP's "LaserJet P2015 Series User Guide [c00623611)" which was packed with the printer , I am informed that upgrade memory chips are 100-pin 66MHz minimum speed.

In HP Support Center's HP "LaserJet P2015 Series Printer - Printer specifications" I am informed that upgrade memory chips are 144-pin 66MHz minimum speed.

Which HP document is correct?

[banhien]

Hi,

Welcome to HP support forum. I'm a volunteer, I've sent your question to other level of support asking them to clarify this. At the meantime, as you plan to upgrade RAM, my suggestion: open RAM slot(s) and count pin (no, just kidding) to have a quick look to determine which one is which:

• 100-pin SO-DIMMs have two notches.
• 144-pin SO-DIMMs have a single notch near the center.

Hope this helps.

[hankjeff]

With my weak eyesight, counting pins is NOT a viable solution.  HP publishes contradictory information - I am asking that they get it right. Is that too much to expect?

And may I expect that HP will issue updates to these documents?  It makes it very difficult to go shopping if I am not able to get accurate information from HP itself.  Vendors around the world offer products that rely on one or the other of these documents - how is a consumer supposed to know what the truth is?

[banhien]

---

@hankjeff wrote:

With my weak eyesight, counting pins is NOT a viable solution.  HP publishes contradictory information - I am asking that they get it right. Is that too much to expect? ...

---

Hi,

Sorry, counting pin is my joke (I actually have open and close brackets). As mentioned above, I've sent message to support persons, hope they will get back soon. I also mentioned above, look at RAM we don't have to count pins, we only look at the notches.

Regards.

[RasterBlaster]

Thank you. I will look into it.

[tonerspills]

I think this particular printer is no longer being manufactured. I'm not sure HP would spend much time updating information on a discontinued model. As a printer tech, I run across mismatched info like that all the time across all manufactures- it's so much technical info, it;s hard to get it all correct.

Are you having memory errors when you print or are you just wanting to upgrade your printer? I have printers in the field that actually are still running with only 8-32MB of onboard memory. If your getting errors while trying to print pdf's or webpages- you may just need to update your printers firmware if it's available.

Here's the part number for two of the memory chips I've used in the past, if they are still available.

CB420A (32Mb Ddr2 144Pin Sdram)

CB421A (64Mb Ddr2)

Here is an off brand memory module for 45$, and it also points to a 144 pin memory slot

P2015 memory

Usually, I advise my customers to just upgrade their printer at this point with something like a M402. I believe the P2015's are about 8-10 years old, so the fuser will probably fail before too much longer due to age.

[hankjeff]

I do not yet have custody of this printer. I am considering buying one to replace my HP LaserJet 1320, an even older model (2004) that hasn't survived the transition from Windows XP to WIndows 7 - the old 1320 drivers don't work in a W7 environment and the "UPD" from the HP Website does not contain all of the variables present in the older driver - duplexing is a sometime thing!  Based on my experience with the LJ1320, where I had increased memory to its max (144Mb), I was looking to increase the memory  in the P2015 (it will accommodate up to 256Mb as the second SIMM). I was thinking the CB423A (256Mb) as long as I was planning to buy a chip, since there is little difference in cost between the 64Mb, the 128Mb, and the 256Mb sizes.

However, as any owner should do before purchasing something, I thought it proper to do some research and found the conflicting statements in the two HP documents cited. Yes, the printer has been on the market for approximately 10 years, so I'm not suggesting a complete paper reprint of these documents, however the time involved for an HP employee the make a correction/change to a pdf document is less than 1 minute. (It's the administrative bureacracy overhead that will drop the price of the HP stock down a $1 for enabling this action!) Unlike on Wikipedia, I do not access to edit HP documents, so somebody there will have to do it.

I had found that chip sellers also must rely on HP documentation and, as a result, their product descriptions are sometimes inaccurate - example: stating that a 100-pin chip is for the P2015 and a 144-pin is for a P3005, while apparently the opposite is true.

Anyway, that's my vent for the day - thanks to everybody for confirming that the 144-pin chip is the correct size. I guess when I actually can see inside the memory access door I will be able to see the one notch/two notch configuration also to confirm the chip size.

[banhien]

Hi,

Sorry, information I've got back:

"Unfortunately, I was told their team is not going to invest the time and effort to update the guide (and all the translated versions) for a product that is 10+ years old. So... the answer is the HTML spec is correct and the User Guide PDF is old and incorrect."

Regards.

[hankjeff · Accepted solution]

Aren't we glad that the team at Boeing who made that 747 that you and I fly on doesn't have that same attitude about correcting 10-year-old inaccurate documentation. Programmers (I used to be one) and tech writers  waste more time popping popcorn, drinking coffee, and updating NCAA brackets in one day than it would take to modify all of the various translations of this one pdf.

It's no wonder that HP stock has declined 80% in the last 4 years if that's the prevailing employee viewpoint.

But thank you for passing my suggestion/request/grumble along to them.

I think we can close this discussion out.