PC LOAD LETTER??!!!! WTF is PC LOAD LETTER!!??
For the last several weeks, I’ve had problems with my HP Color Laserjet 2605dn. I have the printer connected to my Mac with USB and the rest of the computers in the house print to it over ethernet. The problem was that none of the other computers could print to the HP because the IP address kept getting lost. What I mean by that is that I would program in a static IP address into the front panel of the printer and when I would power cycle or reset the printer, the printer would lose its IP address and therefore be unable to communicate over the ethernet interface. Since my computer was working, I didn’t really dig into the problem until this weekend.
Needless to say, HP tech support was closed on the weekend. I happened to be down to CompUSA over the weekend and I just thought I’d ask to see if they had any record of when I bought the printer. They went to some computer in the back room and pulled the records and it turns out the printer was purchased a year ago today (Aug 13) and it has a one year warranty. I figured I had better call Monday morning and see if I could at least get the problem registered with HP so that if I needed to use the warranty at least I got the problem in under the wire. The fact that the warranty was about to expire has nothing to do with the problem or the solution…just thought that the timing was quite typical. Usually things break two days after the warranty expires. Anyway…
Well, I logged onto HP’s website this morning and the best option seemed to be chat support. It turns out their chat support is very easy to use and the people on the other end seem to be very knowledgeable. I was chatting with support away from home and therefore, not in front of the printer, so I couldn’t actually perform some of the simple troubleshooting they asked me to do. Fortunately, I had already tried most of the simple stuff on my own over the weekend and told the tech support rep the results of most of the tests he asked about. After we ran through the simple stuff, he transferred my chat to a JetDirect support rep. The transfer was painless and it kept my chat session going (better than a phone transfer where you usually get dropped).
The JetDirect guy gave me something to try that I hadn’t tried. He told me to perform an NVRAM reset.
Here are his exact instructions: “Please disconnect the network cable from the printer and perform an NVRAM reset. NVRAM reset is performed by powering the printer on while pressing and holding the “SELECT” and “JOB CANCEL” buttons until “PERM STORAGE INIT” is displayed. Please let me know when the printer is back at a ready state with the network cable still unplugged.”
I told him I wasn’t in front of the printer and would have to try it when I got home. I asked for the rest of the instructions and he said ” After the NVRAM reset has been completed, I would like you to log in to the web interface of the printer on the DHCP address it obtains. Once there, assign a static IP address and apply the settings. Test communication on the new static address, and once verified power cycle the printer again to see if it is lost.”
Well this story turns out with a happy ending. The NVRAM reset fixed the problem and the printer is working properly again. There is really no good reason for me to blog this other than I want to tell others how to solve this problem if they should encounter it. After I knew the solution, I tried to google for “PERM STORAGE INIT” and I couldn’t find it so this particular solution would apparently be pretty hard to find on your own.
So to summarize… if your HP Color Laserjet 2605dn loses it’s IP address or can’t communicate over its ethernet interface, the answer is to do an NVRAM reset by unplugging the ethernet cable and then holding “SELECT” and “JOB CANCEL” and turning on the power and waiting for the “PERM STORAGE INIT” message to appear. The rest of the details are above.
By the way, great chat support HP… Highly recommended. The guys that took care of me were: Andy J, Reed V, and Marco K.
I only wish it was available 24/7 and on the weekend. It would have made my life a lot easier.