HP 8100 printer, Vaio laptop, Windows 8.1 (and therein lies the problem, I think)
I was connected wirelessly through my home network, and I was able to print just fine with Win 8. Then I upgraded to 8.1, and since then, whenever I try to print, I get a window telling me the printer is offline. I have gotten another error message but the “offline” one is the most common.
I have uninstalled and reinstalled the printer. I have updated the driver. I downloaded a diagnostic program from HP and managed to print one document, so I thought it was fixed, and then…not fixed.
The printer works just fine when things are sent from any other computer on the network (that would be old desktop and Mac).
If anyone can help, please keep in mind that I have googled this problem, found a lot of so-called fixes, and either they haven’t worked (reinstalling) or they are too complicated for me to figure out. In other words: Simple.
(What I have not tried is uninstalling Win 8.1. Can I do that? I pretty much upgraded accidentally and don’t see any real benefit here.)
Hold off on rolling back to Windows 8.0 . Someone will come along here shortly to help. You may want to open a support ticket with HP or at least cruise their support site.
I have gone to the HP support site. There’s a diagnostic thing that I downloaded. It didn’t help.
I’ve had the computer less than a year and the printer for about 6 months and I really do think I’ve got the right driver installed.
The only thing the diagnostic tool suggests is that it’s linked as a USB rather than as a network printer. But when I go in to try to change it, it shows the correct network, so it’s obviously linked somewhere.
The site also recommended starting with a clean boot and doing something. I am very leery of doing a clean boot. I’m not really all that computer savvy.
Yes, it is the computer, commonly referred to as a “box”, running Windows. Okay, so you can print if the Win/box is connected to the printer using a USB cable linking the two, yes? (Gotta be clear on this).
Okay. We have the basics. The Win/box and printer work with a USB cable strung between the two. Let’s see who else cruises by. Sorry I can’t be of more help but this is a good start. I’ll keep an eye on this thread.
The next step should be to establish if the laptop “sees” the printer. Every component of your network has an IP address, either fixed or obtained from your router/switch. I don’t know the particular model, but seeing that it’s a wireless printer with a display, try this:
On your printer, navigate through the menu till you get to something like Menu->Settings (or Configuration)->Network->IP address. Note down this address. It probably looks similar like this: 192.168.1.xxx.
If you can’t find the address this way, maybe you can print a configuration page through the printer. Look for something like Menu->Settings (or Configuration)->Print Settings (Configuration) Page. The page you’ll get will contain an entry for the IP address.
Now do the following: Get back to your laptop, click on Start, type in “cmd” and start it by clicking the entry for cmd.exe that appears above. A box will open that contains a prompt that looks like “C:\Users\Username>_______”. At this prompt type “ping” + Space + the printer’s IP address and then Enter. You’ll get an answer (or rather four, because the ping command sends four test packets as default) either containing the number of Bytes sent and the response time or “target host not available”. Report back this answer here, and hopefully we can work further from this result.
(…continuing my last post)
As I don’t know when Hilarity can report back and I’m in Europe and will go to bed soon, I just outline what would be the next step if the ping command was successful:
(Please note that I’m not very familiar with Win 8.x, so I’ll describe it like it’s done in Win 7. But I don’t think it’s much different, so it shouldn’t matter. Also, I rarely work with an English-language version of Win, so the notations may be a bit imprecise)
Go to Start, click on “Devices and Printers”, right click on the icon for the HP 8100 and choose “Printer Properties”. In the opening window, click the “Connections” tab. There, you’ll see the entry for your printer connection checked. Click “Configure”. A window will open that should contain something like “IP address” or “LAN address”. Compare this address to the printer’s determined above. If it’s different, change it to the printer’s IP address and close all windows with OK. Try to print again, it should work now.
If the addresses are identical, I’m currently running out of ideas for investigating further without being on-site.
Hilarity N. Suze - In your original post you said, “The printer works just fine when things are sent from any other computer on the network (that would be old desktop and Mac).”
Question. Now that the printer is connected to your laptop via the USB cable, can the old desktop and Mac still print to this printer wirelessly?
Okay. No, the old desktop and the Mac don’t print when the printer is connected via the USB cable. The normal thing is to have the Mac connected via USB cable, and the old desktop connects wirelessly and quite mysteriously. But once the USB is plugged into the desktop instead of the Mac, the desktop will print but neither of the other two will.
Until I upgraded to Windows 8.1 the laptop was also printing wirelessly but at that point it stopped.
Looking over various entries into this topic on the Internet, it seems this is not all that uncommon. Something to do with Win8.1 antimalware?
At any rate, I now have a new laptop and this has become just one of many, many issues. But it is still an issue and I would like to solve it.
This is a known issue with Windows 8.1. They released an update that fixed this three weeks ago.
Run windows updates, making sure to get all the OPTIONAL ones (except the Bing stuff), restart, and run it again. Do it manually to make sure the update is shown.
I just got this new laptp last Saturday. On Monday when I restarted it had 31 updates already. But I didn’t notice if any of them were Win 8.1 so I will check. Thanks!