HP 4100N with Asterisks on display panel

[gowestover]

Hello,

I have an HP LaserJet 4100N that is displaying nothing but asterisks on the display\control panel when powering it up. When I power-cyle the printer, it begins to power up, but then I hear some faint "clicking" noises and the display never comes to a "Ready" state.

I can get this to go away by opening the top cover, removing\re-inserting the toner, closing the top cover, and pressing the "Go" button. After that, the printer will print jobs waiting in the print queue, but the asterisks may come back at any given time or the next time the printer is re-booted.

Anyone ever see this or know what may be causing this? Is this an Engine Board going bad?

[raz]

generally,offhand,it could be an issue with a power supply ,the engine board,the formatter or something on it ,like the firmware or a dimm,or the display itself.a cold reset may help,or uplugging and replugging in the cable between the formatter and display.will the printer print an engine test ok?

it's possible that a network card can cause this if it has an issue.you could try removing any network cards or added memory dimms and try it.at least to test it.is the firmware up to date?

[redcow]

Remove the JEtDirect and do a 'cold reset'. First try and print a 'menu map' and a config page.

Hold "GO" key and power up printer. When 'Cold Reset' appears in the display, release the GO key.
Is there another 4100 around? If yes take the bad printer's formatter and put it in the other printer and use it.

[MichaelTech]

Corrupt firmware will cause this. If you have another 4100, use it's firmware to check. Any added memory that might not be correct for this unit?
As the others have said, remove the JD card,and start up.

[gowestover]

Thanks for the replies, guys.

I did go back to the printer and did a cold reset, and unplugging\replugging the cable between the display and formatter.

I removed the JetDirect card before doing the cold reset, and I was able to print a menu map and config page.

However, it gets interesting from here - at one point before I had returned to do all of this, the end-user recorded an additional error which showed up:

"82.0180 EIO 2 Error".

I also rebooted several times when trying various things like removing all installed memory DIMMs and got: "53.10.03" on the display.

After finally getting to where I could complete a cold reset, I put the card back in. I was going to use HP Download Manager to upgrade the firmware, and found that the printer was not on the network at all. I confirmed this with a config page, which shows nothing installed in the EIO slots.

So, it looks like a bad Jet Direct at the very least...

[raz]

very possibly .the 82 error being a network card slot error.though a 53 error is generally a bad simm or dimm error.it could be something with the formatter itself.did you try cleaning the slots out,say maybe blowing them out with some air or reseating the whole formatter.maybe some bent or corroded pins in there or something.

if you can get a config page to print.it should show the memory dimms installed and if the card is working ,a jet direct page should print.

can you print an engine test with the formatter on and off?

i forgot which one it was ,either a 610n or 615n jet direct;but on one of those ,there was a lot of problems and hp was replacing them free of charge;though i don't know if they still are,or if you have one of those.