HP DesignJet 5500 hangs at "processing"

[pbrooks259]

Hi I have a customer who states regarding his HP DesignJet 5500:

"....having an issue with my 5500 plotter it shows processing and never plots."

I so far have told him:

1. maybe it's a memory problem, make the selection in the driver software to process the print job as a bitmap.

2. try another JetDirect print server card, the present one is a 615N.

3. try the other EIO slot for the EIO card.

(I forgot I should tell him to see what the 5500 does without the JetDirect card-i.e. will it print an internal test print with the card removed? And maybe he could try printing via parallel port. But even if he can do these things, the EIO portion, or part of it, of the main pca MAY be bad. I assume.)

He has tried the 1st 2 items to no avail. I think he is going to try the other slot. He tried another card but it also was 

a 615N. Maybe it could be bad as well.

I do recall a post in which the poster stated that his 5500 was stuck at "job processing". I think it turned out to be a bad 615N card which he replaced with a 620N and fixed it.

Beyond these above items, the next step MIGHT be main pca replacement. I assume.

Thanks.

[D Hook]

Does it print ANYTHING?  Like the printer test page? or a text doc?

How is it connected to the computer?

[pbrooks259]

Hi Don. The customer is about 140 miles away. Again he just says hangs at "processing" then nothing.

I need to ask him to print a test page or something and see what it does. ....I'm thinking it could do ok on an internal  test print and still have bad EIO slot or 2 bad EIO slots. Right?

It is connected to his network via JetDirect card; he has a 615N, historically problematic unless you bake it in the oven as David Zuts suggests. I think at 425 degrees F for 20min or until golden brown, ha.

But he has tried 2 different 615Ns; I doubt if both bad, but could be. He has tried the other EIO slot too. He tried the "process as bitmap"???? or whatever that's called to try to address any memory issue.

He has ordered a 620N card just in case.

Ultimately I think it could be his main pca, but not positive.

[davidzuts]

The proper way to diagnose is what was mentioned above. He has to try and print a test print from the utilities section of the setup menu. Without doing this everyone is just guessing as to the issue and doing things which are probably not necessary.

[pbrooks259 · Accepted solution]

For what it's worth to anyone, a replacement main pca resolved the issue, to the best of my knowledge based on conversations with the customer.

[Jorge70]

Hi.
Let me a question?
Can you ask the customer, the status of the three LEDs on the front panel.
If all led are on and the display in the front panel is off them you have a problem with the boot memory or the ram memory.
Let me know.

[pbrooks259]

Thanks for your input. Again a replacement "main pca" fixed it.

[ETHarting]

I have the same issue. I’m able to print internally from service menu utilities however when I go to print the configuration page outside of this menu it prints 3/4 of the job and then freezes saying processing. Any suggestions?

[pbrooks259]

Not sure and not exhaustive, but real quick and dirty, have you tried to pull the jetdirect card and see what it does? or try the other EIO slot? or try another jetdirect card? Although you are doing internal prints, it seems the jetdirect card can still screw with things.

Hopefully you don't need a replacment main pca as my customer did. You should try a few to several things first. Perhaps some of the further above items.

....heard the disk can cause this; after trying a few to several easier things, do you have a spare disk to try just for grins and giggles?

Sorry, I'm just quickly throwing a few things out there. Hope they don't cause you any undue problems.