PC Hardware Annoyances

Chapter 8. Printer and Scanner Annoyances

I can remember the old daisy wheel and dot impact printers grinding away in tiny, glass-enclosed computer rooms, systematically deafening everyone in the immediate area-ah, the memories! My first Panasonic KX-P1124 printer churned out a few precious pages per minute, though it made more noise than my brother’s Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

New technologies such as laser and ink-jet printing quieted our obnoxious computer peripherals, while dramatically improving their print speed and quality. Suddenly, people were using laser and ink-jet printers to produce high-quality documents and crisp, high-resolution images. Today, color ink printers are an indispensable part of our multimedia diet, producing high-quality photographs, attractive greeting cards, and more. Scanners have also come a long way over the past few years, offering unprecedented connectivity, resolution, and performance. Yet, for all their speed and quality, printers and scanners still behave like the wayward children of the PC world. This chapter delves into setup and configuration issues, covers a series of performance problems, and solves some perplexing maintenance headaches.

SETUP ANNOYANCES

ENABLING A STUBBORN PRINTER

The Annoyance:

I turned on the printer, but I still can’t get it to print.

The Fix:

Before you can print, a printer must be available to the computer. Take a look at the printer and its connection to your system. Make sure that the printer has power (a Power indicator ...