[Nemo2000]

Hi!

A couple of years ago I bought my wife an HP Deskjet 450 printer to go with her laptop (Compaq Presario 2520 running XP SP2). All worked well until about 6 months ago, when it started getting paper-feed problems.

The paper would advance part way into the printer, then stop and the status LED would flash red. Pushing the 'paper feed' button /might/ cause to print OK, or it might advance a bit further, or it might just eject. I took it to my "local friendly" HP engineer, who spent a lot of time looking at it, but could find no obvious cause. However I have noticed that sometimes - but not always - the paper does not seem to feed straight.

Also, once the red light comes on then it seems to 'clog up' the print spooler system altogether. Even if you delete the print file from the print spooler and turn the printer on/off, it refuses to print again without logging out/in on XP.

The printer is NOT used as a mobile - I bought it simply because the table on which she uses the laptop did not have room for anything bigger! Also, we had been using quite a few of them at work, and if they could survive there then I figured they would work OK at home. We use the same business quality paper as we use without problem in the laser printer. She only used the printer about once or twice a week for perhaps 10-20 pages at max each time, so it has not had heavy use.

Any suggestions please - my wife is giving me grief :-( and I don't really want to have to chuck the printer, as - when it works - it IS very nice.

 

[etaf]

I took it to my "local friendly" HP engineer, who spent a lot of time looking at it,

did he clean it all - i have had a similar problem where the paper is not picked up square and a good clean sorted it out

 

[Nemo2000]

I am assurred that it /was/ all cleaned out.

It has been sugegsted that it is a problem with either the pick-up roller or the paper separator, so I need to try it again some time with just a single sheet in.

I get the feeling that the "official" answer will be that it is just uneconomic to repair and better to buy a new one :-(

 

[hovonogila]

I've had the same problems. The unit misfeeds paper, the drivers interupt the job flow and the units been cleaned. Is there anywhere to send this thing?

 

[bhennon]

The paper feed issue you describe is a known issue with the 450's There is a 1 year hardware warranty on those. My company uses 100's of these printers and for a while i was on the phone with HP daily. sometimes you need to let the rep know that you are aware of the issue and know that it is something that needs to come in for repair. You might need to apply a little pressure

you box it up and sent it back and it will be back to you in a couple of weeks.

hope this helps.

-B

 

[Nemo2000]

Sadly my printer was out of warranty before the problem arose :-(

Ironically, one of the reasons that I bought this model was that my organisation uses quite a few of them in very demanding situations and we'd not encountered any problems !

My "local friendly HP engineer" tells me that I would not get it repaired at any sort of economic rate - it would be better to write it off and buy a new one. The throw-away society again :-(

 

[rjr]

I also have the paper feed problem. It developed intermittently while unit was under warranty, but HP refused to honor the warranty. Now it won't feed at all. How would one go about opening the case to do a thorough internal cleaning and check the rollers?