HP M776 giving me major problems

[crp0499]

The problems:

1.  Users send print jobs only to be met with spinning wheel and an eventual error that the printer is offline.

2. The screen on the printer itself "freezes" up and the only fix is to power cycle the printer at the wall.

History:

I purchased this printer in November of 2021, so it's 14 months old.  It's given us trouble from day one.  It would freeze up at the screen and\or be offline and we did lots of reboots (power cycles) to fix that.

Eventually, I did a firmware upgrade to 5.5 from 4.5 and that seemed to help somewhat, but we still have the "offline" when printing and the screen freeze at least once per week.

The owner is asking me to replace it, and, since I purchased this, and since it's out of warranty, I'm not too keen on eating a $10,000 printer that doesn't work.

I see there is a newer firmware, and I plan on installing that this weekend, but I was hoping someone from HP or some end user might have some suggestions.

I cannot find out how to completely turn off sleeping since I think it's going to sleep and that's what's causing the offline issue.  Ping seems to wake it up, but I'd like to disable sleep mode and I'd like to disable the NIC going to sleep as well.

Also, I went in and adjusted the time to sleep to 112 mins, which is the longest I can delay the sleep, but, again, I'd like to disable all sleep modes.

The other thing I did was I went in and added a wake command for every hour on the hour from 8AM to 5PM. hoping that would stop it from going to sleep.

Anyone got any other ideas?

[Repairatrooper]

Number one, make sure that the power is clean. These devices are power hungry and need a DEDICATED 15Amp circuit. Any other heavy load on the same circuit will wreak havoc. Also, the printer online issues are usually generated by the driver not a problem with the printer. Best results for windows based networks is the UPD or SUPD drivers, make sure you are not using either a Microsoft IPP driver or Class driver. Also ensure that all printer queues, either a server or direct from user's workstation are configured with a TCP/IP port, never use a WSD port as they are too unreliable. 

Current firmware for this device is 5.5.0.3. If you are having issues I highly recommend a clean install and then reconfigure the printer. This is easily done by selecting the Reset Firmware option when updating firmware through the EWS.

In terms of sleep mode, the current firmware offers these settings:

[crp0499]

New info here...

Last night I started a constant ping to the printer and told the staff to call me if it went down.  They called a few mins ago so I logged in and sure enough, it's not responding to ping and the screen is frozen.  So, I'm actually "seeing" this problem in real time.  It's not the switch or the PC as it's not pingable from any PC in the building.

I'm starting to think the NIC is bad in the printer.

Thoughts?  

Latest firmware going in this weekend.

[NC77]

If control panel is freezing up, I would replace items that are installed on the formatter.  Remove fax card and test.  Replace SODIMM and test.  Replace hard drive and install current firmware via USB.  test again.  Replace control panel.  Test.  Disconnect from the network and test with a laptop.  Start with the laptop direct connect test.  Good luck.