Thermal printers - what is up?

See  below re: our thermal printers making faint prints.  Since both printers at the circ desk began to do the same thing at approximately the same time, I am beginning to suspect that it might be a problem with the paper.  I cleaned both machines and that made no change in the quality of the printing. 

BTW, the manual to which the tech support guy refers is a pretty sketchy document at best.  It talks about cleaning the print head, but there's no illustration about where it is.  It is right at the top of the opening, so no big deal, but it does indicate that the documentation is lacking.

From: Star Micronics Support [support@starmicronics.com]



Sent: 6/22/2010 5:26 PM


To: pblitt@ccls.org


Subject: RE: Technical Support - Star Micronics [ ref:00D8dXi6.5008B8JB0:ref ]






Hi Pam,






This is most likely a hardware issue. Power on while holding feed an see how that prints. If it looks the same then the only thing to do is try cleaning the print head and roller. I attached the user manual to show how to lean. If that doesn't help it will need repair. Let me know your location and when the printer was purchased to see about warranty.






--------------- Original Message ---------------


From: [pblitt@ccls.org]


Sent: 6/22/2010 3:02 PM


To: support@starmicronics.com


Subject: Technical Support - Star Micronics






Company Name: Tredyffrin Public LibraryContact Name: Pam BlittersdorfPhone: 6106887092Product: TSP700Customer E-mail: pblitt@ccls.orgOperating System: XPInterface: ParallelIssue: printer makes pale copies. Product name: TSP700IIProduct Serial no.: 100160801294Problem: makes pale prints

Disabling PC speakers through BIOS

A solution to noise pollution from Mary Ann Burne:

When powering on the PC, boot up to the BIOS (on our HP systems, keep tapping the F10 key while powering up)


Select English>Advanced>Device Options>Internal Speakers, then right arrow key to disable. F10 to save changes & exit.

Ricoh printer driver resolution

John and Bill from Ricoh, as well as Tony from Computer Services, are here this morning analyzing our printer driver problem. It seems that the group policy is not the culprit, rather it was a conflict with something in the Windows OS.  I'm shocked, shocked to find that Windows could cause this kind of trouble.  Stay tuned for more details.