Photosmart Printer only prints part of page

[Skibum_at_49]

I have a Photosmart C5180 All-in-One and am running windows XP 2002 SP 3 on an HP media center computer. 

The printer is connected via USB cable which I recently replaced to no avail.

Problems started trying to print off the internet or when printing a document with large pictures and have now moved to word documents with data copied off the internet.

Sometime everything prints just fine.  Other times (and this is becoming more frequent) the first few paragraphs will print and then the printer hangs.  Sometimes if I wait 5 or 10 minutes it will print OK,  However it usually stays hung.   The printer screen shows printing and the power button light is flashing.  After 10 minutes or so I often get a document failed to print error.  When I bring up the print queue it will let me try to delete the document, but it won’t delete from the queue unless I turn the printer off.

Restarting printer and PC sometimes helps and the document will print.  Again it is becoming more frequent that this does not solve the problem.  

I have downloaded the printer diagnostic and run it.  It says all is fine.  If I run it after a document has hung it tells me there is a document stuck in the print queue.  I click the fix button and it removes it.  Then when I resend the document to the printer it hangs again.

In the print queue the document size does not fully download.  i.e.. the current document I’m having problems with says in the Size column    38.9KB/132KB       The status changes to Error – Printing.

This printer has done this off and on since I got it 3 years ago.  Now it is getting so bad I can’t trust it.

[Picardje]

HI.

AS you discribe it it sounds more like an issue with the print spooler (printerque) This is a part of windows not of the printer. What might help is reinstalling the printer software and drivers.

[Skibum_at_49]

I already updated and then reinstalled the drivers twice.

I removed the printer and let it reinstall itself and when that didn't help I uninstalled the complete printer package and completely reinstalled with the latest download from HP.

[Picardje]

HI,

Ok then you at least covered that part, as i still think its a spooler issue (so a windows issue) This page could help.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/help/printer-problems-in-windows

[Skibum_at_49]

Still not working

cables are good

ran fix it and it didn't find any problem even while the document was locked up in the print queue

did MS update.  2 low priority updates from 2009.  install them.  rebooted printer and PC. stil locks up

copied document to word pad and it printed OK, but this is NOT an acceptabel solution to do every time.

copied it to another word document and it locked up just the same.

[Picardje]

So it does print from another program hmmm just from word its freezing. Have yoi tried reinstalling word?

[Skibum_at_49]

I haven't reinstalled word.  It does not freeze all the time. only on certain documents.  it does print from other programs, but also freezes in other programs -  Especially printing from the internet.

[Picardje]

Hmmm, Strange indeed,

Try this, install a printer from the add a printer screen in the computer control panel, when available choose the HP Deskjet 990c, and set it to default printer.

When printing choose the correct printer mannually and see what happens, does it freeze like that?

[pearl_axis]

I am having this same issue with my HP photosmart C4680. We got this one free with an Apple laptop. It makes me wonder if HP shipped its poor quality stuff to have apple distrubute for free.  I am going to just toss it because I have wasted enough time trying to get it to work.