Z3100 Intermittenly Cancels Prints

[Mary K]

My 44" HP Z3100 is intermittently cancelling prints before it has finished printing.  The first few times it had only printed about 6-8 inches, but the last one quit about 6" before the end of the print, wasting about 2 feet of 36" canvas plus ink. 

The only message is "Cancelling Print", and the problem has happened about three times in the last 20-30 prints.  I'm running Windows 7 64bit, and printing from Adobe Photoshop CS5.

I'd appreciate any feedback from others that may have experienced this problem.

[deanwork]

Hi Mary,

I did have this same situation happen on the same printer about a year ago.

I'm under warranty so I called HP support after it happened twice in one day.

The guy told me to remove the logic board and reseat it. I thought he was BS ing me.  This is super easy to do and takes less than 5 minutes, so I reluctantly followed his advice. To my astonishment it solved the problem for me and hasn't recurred since. We were all ready to have them ship me out a new logic board but it wasn't necessary. The logic board is on the back right top area of the printer where you see two super easy to remove hand screws.  Loosen the screws and pull it up straight, look for any dust to blow off, then put it back in making sure it goes down straight and clicks into place. Don't touch circuits with your fingers.  This is the best design for removal of main board that I have ever seen on any equipment I've ever owned. They did that right. This main board contains almost all the brains of the printer.

If you still have issues I would also consider the software having a glitch with Windows 7 unless you have been using it for a long time with no problems. I would also check for any firmware updates or Windows issues with firmware updates. I run my Z on Mac Snow Leopard and a PC with XP an Q-Image.

If you ruled out the software and reseat the board and it still is happening I would guess you might need a new hard drive. Some of the early Hitachi hard drives were known to have issues. In my case in the early days they replaced the whole board with the hard drive on it. The new one they put in mine has worked great for 3.5 years now. But when my hard drive went out the whole printer stopped and and the screen went blank.

john

[deanwork]

By the way make sure your printer is unplugged before doing this.

[Mary K]

Hello Dean,

Thanks for the information.  I'll be away most of the day, but will give it a try when I get back this evening.

Mary