Thinking this might be hardware related because I have tried multiple drivers. Occasionally this printer connected via USB to a HP minitower running Windows XP Pro SP3 will print PDF documents in its own language. That is I will send a print task and it will print and a REPORT will pop out with tables titled

[ Date Due ] [ Scheduled Date ] [ Equipment Number ] ....

in its own language of

[ Ebuf EVF ] [ Tdi f evrhe Ebuf ] [ Fr vjqn f ou Ovn cf s ]

If I select to print a second time it will print perfectly fine. And its not random characters as for DATE = Ebuf to this printer when it acts up and prints in yiddish.

Anyone seen this before and know of a cure when drivers aren't fixing it? I was thinking it might be RAM related to the printer, but if Ram related I would expect it to either work or not work not intermittently printing in its own language. Also whats odd is that it binds letters tight together without proper spacing when it does this so above on Ebuf uf are bound tight with Eb with proper spacing and throughout the document there are many others bound tight and merged with the neighboring characters such as WD, WG, Uj, sp, Mf, gu, se, JT, and the list goes on.

I'd say about 1 out of every 50 print jobs will do this and so its not a severe problem, but its a waste of paper, toner, and time when it happens.My 2100 does the same thing from time to time & only with pdf's. Don't know what the cause is. Turn off the printer & kill the print job. Might have something to do with PCL6. Try PCL5 drivers.

My printer has 16MB RAM & is parallel output to an HP JetDirect converter.Good evening DaveLembke

I have seen this many times. This issue that you are having a a communication error and end up being 1 of 3 things. I know you said that this is happening even with USB but here is the way I always fix them in this order. On some of them I would use PCL5 but normally I use PCL6 but here you go.

1... Reinstall the drivers with the most current ones and install them using PCL6 ones and make sure you use the ones for your OS and bit version (i.e Windows XP 32 bit or Windows 7 64 bit etc).

2... Try another USB cable.

3... If the printer has a jet direct card remove it (Jet direct card takes the network cable RJ45) These may be white or grey with 2 thumb screws.

4... The printers formatter board is failing the formatter board is the one that all the cables plug into.

What "Computer_Commando" is telling you is correct PDF jobs are the biggest failed print jobs. So yes delete the print jobs and start with the drivers for the printer on down.

Hope this helps if you have anymore questions please let us know. Please let us know how you make out. Mike



Thanks everyone. I dug further into this trying the other ports and Parallel acts up with same frequency as USB, and the Jet Direct NIC that is installed is not functioning. Went into setup of the printer and the printer is not detecting this device attached to it. I plugged a Cat 5 cable into it that comes from a 16 port switch and that printers Cat 5 port com is acting dead ( no led lit ). My switch is the type that shows yellow led vs green for 10mbps devices so I know its not connected. Going to remove this non functional jet direct NIC since maybe its related to this issue and print some more. If it still acts up its most likely the Formatter Board.

Also to note I installed the latest version of Abobe Reader to eliminate a PDF induced issue. Also I tried the PCL5 and PCL6 drivers, and both act the same so I stuck with PCL 6.

Thanks for the assistance with this, never knew the Jet Direct NIC was blown. This printer came out of storage and the simplest setup since I am the only one using this printer was to take a USB cable and XP Pro instantly recognized it and I was printing without any issues. I guess someone pulled this printer out of service probably because of the Jet Direct NIC blown and never left a tag on it that its got issues.

I can live with the occasional messed up print if thats what it comes down to. Its better than having to print and walk 75 ft to the shared printer for each print job and then try to figure out what are my documents from others..LOL Well Jet Direct 615n removed and first print job was fine and second one was messed up. Oh well ... as long as its only occasionally happening I can live with it, otherwise I will try to get approval for a new printer since a formatter board even though I could replace myself is probably something the boss doesnt want me doing on the clock as well as the price of one might be more economical to get a newer printer.

Thanks for everyones help... Thru this I found a bad Jet Direct card so this printer had previous issues before someone put it into storage. For all I know it could have been struck by lightning but nothing is smoked on the card. Looked for burned traces and blistered or cracked chips as well as the smell test which nothing seems to point to a smoke show.Good evening DaveLembke

I know you closed the post but just to let you know the HP 615 cards were the covered under HP for a couple of years because they had such a high failure rate.

I have had to replace hundreds of them.

Mike