P1102 - Why do I have to press the power button before printing

[Spinks]

Hi,

Just wondering if anybody else knows how to avoid this. We have a P1102 connected via USB, on Win 7 64bit.

Is there a setting somewhere that allows us to not have to press the power button on the printer before printing. It is left on connected to the pc. The pc's are switched off at night.

It is very annoying to have to press the button before printing. It may sound trivial, however our old Hp laserjet 1100, has only been replaced with this P1102 as the new pc's dont have room for a parallel port card, and you never had to press the power button before printing with that, so this feels like a backwards step and is very disappointing.

Many thanks in advance.

[jason_h]

The p1102w laserjet printer is set by default with an Auto-Off timer.  This can be lengthened or turned off, but it is part of the Energy Star certification for the printer.  Overtime HP has begun adding more and more Eco-features to their printers to help in the Green movement.

For information on how to increase or turn off the Auto-off feature click here.

[Spinks]

Thank you for your reply, much appreciated.

Since posting I have tried a few things, including following the links to the pages you suggested.

Under device settings, in the EcoSMART Console, 'sleep afer' 5 minutes is selected, and 'Auto Off After' is set to Never, however the printer still turns off and I cannot print unless we go and press the power button on the printer.

There is no box to uncheck that says Automatically turn off device after inactivity, or if there is, it is hiding somewhere 🙂

Under the advanced Tab, the radio button is selected for Always available.

Currently there are no lights on, on the printer, not even a flashing one to suggest it is on standby, and if I print something, the print request is processed in the 'See what's printing' box when you click on your printer in Printers and Devices section, and I see the print request I made earlier that still hasn't printed.

In that same box, under Status, there is nothing.

Any further thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[jason_h · Accepted solution]

It sounds like the printer software isn't registering that the Auto-Off feature is set to Never.  I would advise trying to update the internal firmware on the printer to see if by updating the Auto-Off being set to Never will work.

Click here to access the downloads page for the Laserjet Firmwares.  Select the P1100 series from the drop down list.

This will have to be performed while a USB cable connects the printer and PC.  Let me know if the firmware is able to get the printer to stay alive.

[Spinks]

Thanks for that, I will give that a try right now, and report back later 🙂

[Spinks]

Ok - I have DL'd the firmware update and run it, and it says the firmware is up to date. However initially it would not run the update as it said no printer was attached, although it could see it, so I am wondering if there may be an issue with the USB port itself. Not quite sure why it would see the printer, but not allow it to function as one would expect, but then again, stranger things have happened. I'll leave it a few hours, maybe as much as 24, and see if the problem is resolved.

In the meantime, thank you for your assistance.

[Spinks]

Problem solved - thank you!

It turns out there is some sort of problem with one of the USB ports, which I don't understand, but I will try to explain as follows:

The HP software installed correctly, the printer printed, it was viewable across the network, however it would not stop powering off, and would not print unless the power button was pressed, as it was auto-powering off.

I discovered the problem with the USB port using the firmware upgrade, as whilst it could see the printer it could not perform the firmware update. As soon as I tried a different USB port the firmware was able to confirm it was up to date. Also it now does not power off, and it wakes up as soon as it is sent a print request.

So, thank you for your assitance.

Solved 🙂