Installing a new printer

A couple of days ago I noticed that print jobs that had been sent to the printer were still in the queue even after a week and so I tried to clear them. Unfortunately, the control for this process in the software didn't work. I had also noticed that the printer was not printing dark enough and so I went out to buy some new cartridges from the stationery store. The new cartridges however made no difference. With two printer problems current - and a legacy problem from a long time back relating to the remote backup drive for the PC - I decided to get a technician out to have a look at things.

I called the service and they scheduled a technician for Thursday morning early, and he arrived. He tried printing the default control pages that are designed to let you gauge the performance of the printer, but the black wasn't working at all for him. We switched out the old black cartridge for a new black cartridge but the problem wouldn't go away. The printer queue problem was another matter but since the printer wasn't working as designed he told me to get a new printer, which I did later the same day.

After opening the printer's packing box and placing the printer where I wanted it to go, I tried to install the driver software. The device driver executable in the package on a CD-ROM referred me to a website and I downloaded the printer drivers from there, which took some time due to download speeds. I set up the printer using the screens that came up and then tried to print from a PDF a document that needed to be printed but the name of the new printer wasn't in the list of available devices. I typed in the name of the new printer over the top of the old printer, but it still told me the device was offline.

I went back to the device driver CD-ROM and installed the software from it this time but with the same result. Then this morning I called the technicians and booked another service visit for Tuesday because Monday is a public holiday. I also talked about the problems with my brother - who is a bit of a whiz with technology - and he told me to go into the devices page in Windows, which I did. I tried to install the new printer from there but it said that the device was not visible on the network. So we'll have to see what the technician says on Tuesday. Meanwhile the number of documents I need to print out just piles up. I hope I remember all of them when the printer finally comes online.