Well, today I went rustling through a thrift shop and found myself a gorgeous (well, actually yellow and hideous) LaserJet 5. With the network card so I don't have to turn on my machine when the other one wants to print. $9! It looks well specced-out, seems to print fine and the self-test details indicate 22Mb of installed memory and a page count of 32,xxx. Knowing the LJ4050s at work had like 240,000 on their odometer, this does not bother me.

My Samsung ML-1210 has been wonky ever since I went about a year where I had nothing to print-- it often requires several attempts to feed-- so I'm stoked about the replacement.

The issues I have:

-The VFD seems very dim compared to other VFDs... I assume they just fade and burn-in over time?

-It's surprisingly loud when first started up and during printing. It quiets down at idle. Not BAD, but way louder than the Samsung. Typical?

-Both the Win2000 and WinXP boxes on the network both mis-guessed the configuration, albeit differently. If you go to the printer's properties box, click Device Settings, under 'Installable options', both claimed a duplexer was installed (it wasn't), and both underestimated the memory (Win2000 said 2048k instead of 22528k, and WinXP said 4096k) Typical? I'm using it over a network, so I ended up making a port for it and manually specifying the drivers when it generated these selections. Is there a better way to use it over a network?

-I've got a bucket of RAM... will old PC SIMMs work? How do I install them? HP's site is woefully devoid of useful info, as are most of the third party memory vendors. Will fully populating the machine to (depending who you ask) 52M or 66M provide a noticable kick beyond "Hey look I reused the SIMMs I discarded when I upgraded to PC-66 SDRAM!"

-The network options wouldn't "stick"... like "Configure Network = OFF" kept returning to that setting no matter how many times I changed it to On. I suspect it somehow decided its IP number (192.168.1.102) from DHCP, but that worries me that the next time I power-cycle the printer, my router (Linkysys WRT54G) will decide it wants to assign it a different number and the configured machines will be lost. Is this an actual problem or am I paranoid? I power-cycled it once, printed again, and it came out.

VFD? Laser Printers dont use VFD's. Microwaves, DVD/VCR players use VFDs. Laser Printers have graphic LCDs on them with a backlight. The Backlight maybe too dim because there is too much resistance.

What kind of card is in that HP? There were many different types made, and all of those had several configuration options. Good score with the HP5, I had an HP4 that I got for $50 that served me for about 8 years before it got to a point that I could no longer repair it.

:looks at self-test sheet:

It says the model is J2552B -- as I recall, it has a BNC, a 10BaseT, and a LocalTalk plug. The network options apparently allow you to turn LocalTalk, Novell-compatible, and TCP/IP compatible behaviour on and off. I'm amazed that of all the choices there isn't something that makes it appear like a ordinary Windows box offering a shared printer... but then I look at the label, built 4/96, back when networking was competitive.

There were actually two printers-- one had the network card removed and was $4, and then this one. I figured the network card was a preferrable alternative to sacrificing the one parallel port I had to the printer. As an added plus, I'd no longer be seeing clashing between the printer server (running Win2000) and the client (running XP) which insisted on demanding a login recognized to the server.

I'm amazed nobody's developed a Jetdirect-compatible card which contains a USB port... cos these things are tanks and I'm betting there are a lot of people who are frustrated to discover new legacy-free systems can't talk to their reliable printers.

And yes, Nerdz, some laser printers have VFDs (this one does, as does the colour LJ5).

What we buy are old HP JetDirect EX Plus servers for $10 to network our printers. My current primary is a HP6 I pulled from the neighbor's trash. It shares quite nicely.

Quote: Originally Posted by Hak Foo Well, today I went rustling through a thrift shop and found myself a gorgeous (well, actually yellow and hideous) LaserJet 5. With the network card so I don't have to turn on my machine when the other one wants to print. $9! It looks well specced-out, seems to print fine and the self-test details indicate 22Mb of installed memory and a page count of 32,xxx. Knowing the LJ4050s at work had like 240,000 on their odometer, this does not bother me. My Samsung ML-1210 has been wonky ever since I went about a year where I had nothing to print-- it often requires several attempts to feed-- so I'm stoked about the replacement. The issues I have: -The VFD seems very dim compared to other VFDs... I assume they just fade and burn-in over time? Flaky power going to the display, might disappear on you. -It's surprisingly loud when first started up and during printing. It quiets down at idle. Not BAD, but way louder than the Samsung. Typical? Yes, typical. -Both the Win2000 and WinXP boxes on the network both mis-guessed the configuration, albeit differently. If you go to the printer's properties box, click Device Settings, under 'Installable options', both claimed a duplexer was installed (it wasn't), and both underestimated the memory (Win2000 said 2048k instead of 22528k, and WinXP said 4096k) Typical? I'm using it over a network, so I ended up making a port for it and manually specifying the drivers when it generated these selections. Is there a better way to use it over a network? No real problem with the device settings, just change them locally. I assume you made a tcp/ip port? Unless you are running a server with a netwrok OS on it, this is the best way to set it up. -I've got a bucket of RAM... will old PC SIMMs work? How do I install them? HP's site is woefully devoid of useful info, as are most of the third party memory vendors. Will fully populating the machine to (depending who you ask) 52M or 66M provide a noticable kick beyond "Hey look I reused the SIMMs I discarded when I upgraded to PC-66 SDRAM!" Old generic RAM willl most likely not work. You could experiment, but I wouldn't. -The network options wouldn't "stick"... like "Configure Network = OFF" kept returning to that setting no matter how many times I changed it to On. I suspect it somehow decided its IP number (192.168.1.102) from DHCP, but that worries me that the next time I power-cycle the printer, my router (Linkysys WRT54G) will decide it wants to assign it a different number and the configured machines will be lost. Is this an actual problem or am I paranoid? I power-cycled it once, printed again, and it came out.

To make a change "stick", you have to select the change when you make it, IIRC, there should be an asterisk next to the setting that will "stick".Yep, you need to give it a hard IP address, unles you are using DNS or WIns, which you probably are not since you don't have a server.

Thank you for the comprehensive, detailed reply.

Quote: Originally Posted by joecoin Flaky power going to the display, might disappear on you.

If anything it reminds me of the VFDs on the slot machines at my local casino-- they're on 24/7 running the same patterns, and you get fairly dim and irregular (neighbouring dots vary widely in brightness) images. I think I'm gonna attribute it to age.

Quote: No real problem with the device settings, just change them locally. I assume you made a tcp/ip port? Unless you are running a server with a netwrok OS on it, this is the best way to set it up.

Yeah. I guess I was surprised because making the TCP/IP port is done in the "configure a local printer" area; I expected it to show up in the "Configure a network printer" browse selection. Seemed something they'd have streamlined by XP or 2000.

I guess there's Microsoft logic there-- only printers shared from a machine running Microsoft networking protocols show up as "real" network printers.

Quote: Old generic RAM willl most likely not work. You could experiment, but I wouldn't.

I was predominantly curious how you access the RAM slots; when I carefully opened all the nooks and crannies to clean it out, I didn't see four SIMM slots anywhere. Only thing I could think of would be the panel that's held on with a screw.

The bag-o-RAM I have is probably kaput, but if I can make my printer more 1337 for free, why not? (Yeah, super 1337 black-and-white laser printer! )

Realization: I actually don't have a machine I could memtest a 16Mb SIMM on-- nothing between a DIMM-only Celeron and a 486-133 laptop which only recognizes 4Mb SIMMs. To the Surplus Property Sales Yard!

Quote: To make a change "stick", you have to select the change when you make it, IIRC, there should be an asterisk next to the setting that will "stick".Yep, you need to give it a hard IP address, unles you are using DNS or WIns, which you probably are not since you don't have a server.

Got it. I think what was throwing me was the "CFG Network" setting kept dropping... I interpreted it as "Use Network" but it's just the option which if set to 'on' allows you to navigate deeper into the network menu. Baka.

Quote: Originally Posted by Hak Foo And yes, Nerdz, some laser printers have VFDs (this one does, as does the colour LJ5).

Really? Wow, Thats a first. They do get old over time, its because of the filiment wears down, or that its Leaking. Or again, as Ive said with the LCD backlight, the resistance may be too high.