Epson Stylus question

[John Smith]

Well two questions really...

Friend has an Epson Stylus 640 printer...without handbook and needs help :-

1. How does he print a test page?

2. Today he had the dreaded printer printing gobbldegook and wouldn't stop
during attempting to print...15 - 20 prints wouldn't stop! ...tried
everything..turning printer and pc off and restarting etc...document cancel
etc...finally seemed to correct itself when he put another file in for
printing.
He thinks it could have been running out of printing paper at the time when
things went awol.
So, he just wondered what could have set this off...what causes a printer to
suddenly start printing gobbledegook like this and, more important, what's
the best way to stop it should this occur in the future?

Thanks,

John

 

[Larc]

On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 20:23:52 +0100, "John Smith"

| Well two questions really...
|
| Friend has an Epson Stylus 640 printer...without handbook and needs help :-
|
| 1. How does he print a test page?

Is he running Windows? Go to Control Panel > Printers and Faxes >
right click on the icon representing the Epson 640 > open Properties >
General tab > click on the Print Test Page button at bottom right.

| 2. Today he had the dreaded printer printing gobbldegook and wouldn't stop
| during attempting to print...15 - 20 prints wouldn't stop! ...tried
| everything..turning printer and pc off and restarting etc...document cancel
| etc...finally seemed to correct itself when he put another file in for
| printing.
| He thinks it could have been running out of printing paper at the time when
| things went awol.
| So, he just wondered what could have set this off...what causes a printer to
| suddenly start printing gobbledegook like this and, more important, what's
| the best way to stop it should this occur in the future?

Sorry, maybe somebody else can help you with that one.

Larc



§§§ - Change planet to earth to reply by email - §§§

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Well two questions really...

Friend has an Epson Stylus 640 printer...without handbook and needs help :-

1. How does he print a test page?

Epson.com and then go to the country you live in. I believe both the US
and UK sites, at least, have most, if not all of the manuals as
downloadable pdf files.

2. Today he had the dreaded printer printing gobbldegook and wouldn't stop
during attempting to print...15 - 20 prints wouldn't stop! ...tried
everything..turning printer and pc off and restarting etc...document cancel
etc...finally seemed to correct itself when he put another file in for
printing.
He thinks it could have been running out of printing paper at the time when
things went awol.
So, he just wondered what could have set this off...what causes a printer to
suddenly start printing gobbledegook like this and, more important, what's
the best way to stop it should this occur in the future?

This is usually a result of selecting the wrong driver. If he has more
than one printer driver on his computer and selected the wrong one by
accident, the data can be sent in a manner the printer cannot understand
and it will begin to print text code.

On rare occasions, the driver may temporarily corrupt, or if the data
stream is damaged or interrupted by something, and that might also cause
it. Even a very brief electrical current problem can do this.

Any data that has already made it into the printer's memory buffer will
continue to print. There is usually a reset mode via button presses
from the front of the printer that will flush to printer's buffer.

If you can't find out the reset method, you could shut off the printer.

After doing so, wait about 2-4 minutes until the computer recognizes the
printer is no longer on line, and send you a notice asking you to cancel
or continue to printing job (Cancel it), before turning the printer back on.

You may still get a page with some garbled text with the next printing
job. I don't know which OS he was using. WIth Win 98/98SE, you can
pull up the printer queue and cancel anything left waiting within in by
going to My Computer>Printers> click on a printer icon and a window will
open > go to file menu and "Purge Print Documents" if you see anything
still listed in the queue box.

Art

 

[Arthur Entlich]

On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 20:23:52 +0100, "John Smith"

| Well two questions really...
|
| Friend has an Epson Stylus 640 printer...without handbook and needs help :-
|
| 1. How does he print a test page?

Is he running Windows? Go to Control Panel > Printers and Faxes >
right click on the icon representing the Epson 640 > open Properties >
General tab > click on the Print Test Page button at bottom right.

I didn't even think about the Windows printer test page... good point!

I immediately thought of the built in firmware test page form the
printer directly.


Art

 

[John Smith]

Ah, many thanks ref 1.
John

 

[John Smith]

TVM Arthur
John
---------------

Epson.com and then go to the country you live in. I believe both the US
and UK sites, at least, have most, if not all of the manuals as
downloadable pdf files.


This is usually a result of selecting the wrong driver. If he has more
than one printer driver on his computer and selected the wrong one by
accident, the data can be sent in a manner the printer cannot understand
and it will begin to print text code.

On rare occasions, the driver may temporarily corrupt, or if the data
stream is damaged or interrupted by something, and that might also cause
it. Even a very brief electrical current problem can do this.

Any data that has already made it into the printer's memory buffer will
continue to print. There is usually a reset mode via button presses from
the front of the printer that will flush to printer's buffer.

If you can't find out the reset method, you could shut off the printer.

After doing so, wait about 2-4 minutes until the computer recognizes the
printer is no longer on line, and send you a notice asking you to cancel
or continue to printing job (Cancel it), before turning the printer back
on.

You may still get a page with some garbled text with the next printing
job. I don't know which OS he was using. WIth Win 98/98SE, you can pull
up the printer queue and cancel anything left waiting within in by going
to My Computer>Printers> click on a printer icon and a window will open >
go to file menu and "Purge Print Documents" if you see anything still
listed in the queue box.

Art

 

[InterApple]

Art

You're obviously well informed about Epson printers, so i wonder if you
could possibly shed some light on this small issue.

I've got an Epson Stylus Colour 1520, bought it secondhand so I don't know
how old it is. It prints fine, but the problem is paper feed. I draw in
AutoCad and plot on A2 cut sheets, 100g/m2. The sheet picks up okay, but
frequently passes straight through, as if it's doing a 'form feed'. What
little information I can find on the 'net suggests an inherent (but not
disastrous) fault.

Do you know any more?

Thanks
PL

 

[Arthur Entlich]

I've replied in private mail to this as I received the private one first.

Art

 

[ABC]

Today he had the dreaded printer printing gobbldegook and wouldn't stop
during attempting to print...15 - 20 prints wouldn't stop! ...tried
everything..turning printer and pc off and restarting etc...document cancel
etc...finally seemed to correct itself when he put another file in for
printing.
He thinks it could have been running out of printing paper at the time when
things went awol.
So, he just wondered what could have set this off...what causes a printer to
suddenly start printing gobbledegook like this and, more important, what's
the best way to stop it should this occur in the future?

I have exactly the same problem with Stylus 710 and have just started
another thread. Microsoft has a page about this but that may not be
the cause of your problem.---i.e. -stopping the print job before the
printer gets all the data.

Before I find the answer, I just turn off the printer for about 30
minutes . this will clean the buffer.



ABC

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