How To: Resolving Printer Issues

 

I have a love/hate relationship with technology.

I love the next coolest gadget, but I find that sometimes these things have minds of their own.

Take printers for example. A printer can be a dependable machine making copies, scanning to your PC and printing one day, and the next day you end up getting an error. And you didn't even touch it!

What exactly does 'Error 11' mean on that HP printer mean? And if the paper is out, why doesn't it just tell me that!?? (This is the hate portion of the relationship)
Figuring out the issue is half the battle, the other is trying to figure out a solution to get it working properly.

Here are a few troubleshooting steps to resolve printer issues.
1. Check your printer error lights; Most manufactures nowadays have lights on the front panel that indicate what the issue is. You may have to refer to the manual to determine what lights mean what. If you no longer have the manual you may have to go online and search the manufactures website to download the PDF version.

2. Clear the printer queue; Often the holdup in being unable to print is previous documents in the printer queue which failed to print. Documents are printed in the order the Queue receives them. It's much like a traffic jam. If the front car doesn't move, no other cars go forward either.

     a. Click the Start Menu, and in the Search Bar type "Printers & Scanners'
     b. Select and click on your printer, and click 'Open Print Queue' - if there are documents listed, click the menu 'Printer' and click 'Cancel All Documents' 

3. Run the troubleshooter; Windows provides excellent troubleshooter programs for situations like this. 
     a. Under Settings, 'Printers & Scanners', click on your printer. 
     b. Click 'Run the Troubleshooter'. 
This is an automated process which goes thru certain steps. It checks the connection to the printer (wireless or USB), that Windows is communicating to the printer, stops and restarts the printer spooler (a small application that manages documents being printed), checks the network and others steps involved.

These three steps alone should get your printer back up and running. But is that's not the case you may need to reinstall the printer software and drivers.

How to: Task Manager - how to use it

If you find that your system is running slow, before assuming that you have a virus or spyware, first examine what programs are running in the background.

 While it is true that a computer that is slow or freezes may be a possible indication of viruses and/or spyware, let's not jump the gun and assume that automatically.

Lets just open up Task Manager first.

Task Manager is a Windows utility that's been around since Windows 2000. It provides detailed information about background programs, processes, users logged in, services currently running or stopped, network activity as well as CPU and memory usage.

Yeah...it's a pretty decent tool.

Windows Vista Task Manager

Windows 10 Task Manager

1. How exactly do you open it up? 

There are various ways, but the easiest is holding down CTL+SHIFT+ESC. 

True, some will use the CTL+ALT+DEL, but that open up a menu with several selections including Task Manager. 

Lets just keep it simple shall we?..... CTL+SHIFT+ESC

2. When you open Task Manager up, you'll see 6 tabs....Applications, Processes,

Services, Performance, Networking, Users.

3. Click the Processes tab

4. This tab will show you what programs and processes are running in the background.

5. You can end/terminate one by RIGHT clicking and selecting End Process.

Win 11 Task manager

Now you may ask, "That's great, but which ones can I end... and why would I want to end a process?"

Those are good questions. If your computer is running slow, you may end a process here to free up memory.

Which ones should you end? 

It takes a keen eye to determine which ones exactly to end, however the ones listed as a System or Administrator process should NOT be stopped such as 'explorer.exe', 'winlogon.exe' or 'services.exe'.

'Spooler.exe' is a safe one to end only if you do not plan to print anything.

Ones like 'iTuneshelper.exe', 'Jusched.exe' or 'iPodservice.exe' are pretty safe to end as well.

The ones listed as a (your user name) usually are safe to end.

If you find any strange named processes such as "xtshbysa.exe' or 'yzghwtr.exe' chances or that you either have a virus or spyware (or both).

You'll see 'Svchost.exe' likely ALOT. This is a small executable that allows DLL's (Dynamic Link Libraries) to communicate with Windows. Many programs will use this file, however if you see one using excessive memory, end it.

One word of note: Ending ANY of the processes will not damage your computer. End any of these processes and you'll likely free up memory. At worst you 'll have to restart the computer. Ending processes in the task manager is only a temporary way of freeing up memory.

For a more permanent solution use System Configuration. I'll cover that in my next entry.

Originally Posted 03/06/2020

How to: Four simple ways to speed up your Windows PC boot up time

So you turn on the power button to your computer....waiting for Windows to boot.....you see the Manufactures screen......then you see the Windows 10 screen.

Waiting....waiting........you go decide to make a cup of coffee.
You come back.....your desktop has appeared.....but the hourglass is showing....meaning programs are running in the background. 

OMG!! Two minutes later....."finally!!"

How often have we gone thru that?
Well....it doesn't really have to be that way. In fact, the following steps will trim your Windows boot time from a slow snail's pace to a quick rabbit on caffeine.

Disabling certain startup programs

It's a well-known fact. The longer you have a PC, the more you'll end up downloading programs and software. Some programs that automatically get stored into memory as Windows starts up, slowing the boot time. Printer programs and drivers, antivirus software...and other software.
By disabling some of these programs you can speed up Windows boot time.

1. Right-click (not left click) on the Start Menu, and click "Task Manager"
2. When the Task Manager appears, click on Startup - here is where the current programs assigned by Windows to startup automatically.
3.  Right-click on the program you don't want to start automatically and select Disable

Upgrading your hardware

A second way to speed up your Windows startup is to upgrade your system's hardware.
With desktops, your options in doing this are a little more than if you have a laptop. First, try upgrading your memory. If you have a desktop or laptop running 4gb of RAM, look into possibly upgrading to 6 or 8GB.

To see the status of your memory usage, right-click the taskbar, and select Task Manager. Click the Performance tab: In the lower-left corner, you’ll see how much RAM is in use. If under normal use, the Available option is less than 25 percent of the total, an upgrade may do you some good.

Crucial and Kingston are major PC memory providers and Crucial has a memory diagnostic tool to determine what kind of memory as well as Kingston Memory scanner.

Upgrade from a Hard Drive to a Solid State Drive

As SSDs work with flash memory (the kind that are in USB drives) they can be up to 8 times faster than standard hard drives. This speeds your Windows boot time tremendously.

See my Advantages of SSDs to Hard Drives article for more information on this.

Use Sleep instead of Shut Down

When you have finished with whatever you're doing on your PC, select Sleep instead of completely shutting the computer down.

If you choose Shut Down Windows closes all apps, programs, logs you off and closes the Windows session, and shuts down the computer.

Sleep keeps the Windows session open and uses a low power state (not shutting the PC completely) thereby starting Windows instantly.

Originally posted 4/16/18