Hi our dell 1720 printer has been printing hundereds of pages of nothing but gibberish since saturday. At first I thought it was trying to print a file someone deleted before cancelling from the que but now it seems its doing it with every print job we send to this printer - even test print pages. This printer is in use at a hotel. Any ideas? Thanks ahead.

Hi,

I have found a good manual that can help you easily with the help of pictures.

Click on the link below to access it :

ftp://ftp.lexmark.com/depot/Dell/Dell_1720_Depot_rev061807.pdf

In case of further help let me know

Goto support.dell.com and follow the troubleshooter for "Service error 1720dn" that should narrow it WAY down for you. It's probably just the hsync is off on the laser. The troubleshooting trees that they have at dell will tell you exactly why it is not working correctly.

hey

might be possible the cartigies of the printer has gone bad ,,take the cartiges out and then try to reset the computer and check that wether the things are working or not .
or else try to get in touch with me on fixya

Whenever I have a customer tell me their printer seems to be running slower, 9 times out of 10 its what they're trying to print...not the printer. Heres a couple of things to do and ask yourself. First I'd do a test print from the printer itself. Does it kick it right out? Then go to the printer folder on the computer, right click on the printer, go to properties..click print test page. Does that come out pretty quick? Okay if they seem relatively fast then its beginning to look like something other than the printer. Try printing the job that seems to run slow. Then try printing from a different program. Is there a difference in speed? The job that prints slow may have graphics or require more memory then it use to. Perhaps you changed the graphics content on the page and the printerr is taking more time to process it. Adding more memory to the printer can help that.

Did you make any software change to the printer about the same time you noticed the slow down?
Have you changed the font color in the computer to something other than black for that particular print job? I've seen monochrome (black and white) laser printers slow down because its trying to convert the job to say violet or some other color. Its a black text printer and apparently printing color confuses it ..lol My bet is..if you really sit down and think back...something changed in the content of what your printing thats taking it longer to process it. Hope this helps!

Print test page from the printer. This prints fine? Then anytime a printer prints gibberish versus what you were trying to print from the computer means you should try one of two things. Download the most recent drivers from the products support site, install these. Be sure to uninstall the old drivers first. Another item that can cause gibberish print is a bad cable. Swapping out with a known good could solve the whole problem.

Print test page from the printer. This does not print fine? Then you are looking at something wrong with the printer. The cable and drivers would not be the cause because the only piece of equipment involved at this point is the printer. First step I would try in solving this. Download and update the firmware from the support site. If this does not work, then you may have a defunct printer. If you are under warranty, contact Dell tech support.

The second link was the helpful information. Also, to cut through all of that --

If you need to reset the counter:

1. Remove drum kit with toner

2. Make sure all print jobs are flushed otherwise whatever has been sent and not printed will come spewing out.

3. Hold down CANCEL Button until all lights flash through.

4. Slide the drum kit and toner properly into the Printer.

done.

gibberish printing is normally a sign of outdated print drivers. Try going to HP's support site and download the latest PCL driver.

Normally to fix a printer that is printing gibberish, uninstalling and reinstalling the print drivers will fix this issue. Another thing that can contribute to gibberish print is using a USB cable that is too long.

With this particular problem (prints Zen), one solve is to uninstall any Dell toner management software. This is particularly true if you are running Vista and hooked up by USB. To uninstall the toner management software (Vista OS), go to control panel>programs>programs and feature>uninstall a program. From this list choose Dell software, choose a customized uninstall, and then choose anything that has to do with Dell toner management.

You can get a usb adapter to printer comp ports on ebay eBayeBay

I would move the printer to another computer. See if the problem follows. I have seen the issue a few times with issues in normal.dot but also in other office applications.

Problem I'm fighting with on my 1720 is its printing extra pages between pages. basically print a 5 page document and get an 8/9 page final with the extra blank pages. Think its a user error but could be machine related. going to try it on another PC and see what happens.