Two questions about the M281fdw

[joo5]

Hello,

I have recently bought the M281fdw and so far I am satisfied. However, I have two questions.

1. Every time I turn my computer on or off, the M281fdw (display) goes on. That is totally unnecessary. How can I disable this? All devices that I had before (from other manufacturers) did not have the problem. The M281fdw is connected via USB.
2. If the display is off, is the device in standby (ready) or in sleep mode? And what about the point "Shut down after inactivity"? Is the device then completely switched off?

Thanks for answering my questions.

joo

[John_Getzke]

To answer your questions:

1. I am not aware of a setting that can change this behavior.  One option would be to unplug the USB cable when the printer is no longer needed.  I'll try to reproduce this problem with my M281 and see if I can find a better solution.

2. If the display is off then the printer is most likely in sleep mode. Sleep mode is a configurable setting.  The printer will go to sleep after the determined amount of time has passed without someone touching the control panel or sending a print job to the printer. 

See page 88 of the M281 User Guide for steps:

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c05543371

[joo5]

Hi,

thank you for your answer.

1. Unplug USB is not a solution. It would be nice if you find a better solution.

2. "most likely" means not necessarily. So it could be in standby and consume 8 Watts all the time?

>> See page 88 of the M281 User Guide for steps

What is the connection with the fax to my questions?

[John_Getzke]

> So it could be in standby and consume 8 Watts all the time?

Correct, but unlikely.  The printer will go into sleep mode sooner or later when the sleep timer criteria has been met.  As far as I know all printers are able to wake on USB without user intervention.  That is not always the case for network printer connections.  All printers should be able to wake up on USB connections without user intervention. 

From what I can remember this printer model does not have a screen dimming feature like some other high end models do after 5 minutes of no control panel use.  I believe it is an all on or all off kind of feature.

> What is the connection with the fax to my questions?

Page 88 of the User Guide shows how to set the Sleep/Auto Off after INactivity setting.  You might be looking at a different page.

That being said, page 89 refers to the Set the Delay Shut Down setting.  One of the options is "When Ports are Active".  This feature will delay the shutdown of the printer from the power button whenever the printer is receving a network or fax job.  Since you are USB connected in your scenario I do not think it will have an impact for you.

[John_Getzke]

Alright, I grabbed my M281 and did some testing.

Using the 1 minute sleep timer setting I made the following observations:

- The printer control panel does light up every time you connect or disconnect the USB cable from the PC

- The printer control panel turns off when the printer goes into sleep mode, AKA no screen dimming feature

- The printer has a seperate Turn Off feature configured to 4 hours by default

- The power button continued to blink once the printer was in sleep mode

- I heard a beep on the printer to signify the start of the no activity timer.  One minute after i heard the beep the printer entered sleep mode. 

To circle back to your original questions:

1. This appears to be the default USB connectivity functionality.  Anytime the printer detects a new USB conenction it will wake up from sleep mode.  I do not see a way to configure around this functionality with the current settings of this model.

2. If the display is off it could be completely off or in Sleep Mode.  It would take a little more observation but I would assume the blinking power button is the status indicator to confirm if the printer is powered off or in sleep mode. The control panel/display is not enough of a confirmation to make the assumption.

If the light from the control panel botheres you then you can attempt to cover up the screen with some tape and a piece of paper.  When you want to use the printer flip the paper over and use it.  When you are done flip the paper back and cover up the control panel.

Or you could leave the printer connected to a device that is always powered on and share that printer connection over your network.  For example if you have a spare workstation with USB you could rig it up to act as an always available print server.  That way the printer would always see a consistent USB connection regardless of the status of your primary PC.  The printer would then remain on sleep mode or power off mode until it is needed.  Since your printer is still USB connected to the device acting as a print server it should wake up as needed.

[joo5]

Ok, thank you for your reply. This answers my Question No. 2.

The only thing missing is Question No. 1   🙂

>> Page 88 of the User Guide shows how to set the Sleep/Auto Off after INactivity setting.  You might be looking at a different page.

The documents page one starts at page 12 on the pdf viewer. So if I type page 88 it shows me page 77 on the pdf. I dint look at the real pdf page   🙂

[joo5]

ok, thank you for checking No 1.

So, if I connect the M281 over the network (witch is all the time active) I could solve the Problem?

[John_Getzke · Accepted solution]

Yes.

Switching to a nework connection would resolve the USB detection/Control Panel issue.  The M281 does support the "Wake on LAN" feature.  That means it no longer cares about the status of your PC and should wake up anytime you send a network print job to it.

[joo5]

ok, I will then connect it over the network.

Thank you very much for your help.

[John_Getzke]

You are welcome.

Please check back with the thread after you have experimented with the network connection.  Let us know if that idea will be a sufficient a work around or not.  Marking one of the threads as a solution may help future readers arrive at the same conclusion about this design limitation.