LaserJet 5L - fuzzy image

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Guest

Hi,

This printer was purchased in 1996 for $800, and having spent much of
its life on a 486 running Win 3.11 has given great service. It prints
an immaculate, perfectly clean copy with its 600dpi. The test page is
beautiful. During this time it has printed word processing documents
exclusively from this PC, and an occasional chart, which also prints
well.

Given its great service, I have moved the printer to my new PC running
Windows XP. And it still prints text beautifully. However, this PC is
connected to the web, and I feel let down by it in regard to the poor
print image it puts out. Help!

I recently bought a scanner, and images scanned print very poorly.
Help!

In fact, it wants to print at 300dpi all the time, and if I force it
to go 600dpi the print image is only partially improved and generally
spreads the print job over two pages, rather than one! I also note
that the image quality (crispness of the image varies over the page).

The manual tended to indicate that the problem might be a lack of
memory, but I'm not sure. This printer is advertised on ebay for
between $40 and $150. HP suppliers said memory chips will cost
between $300-$500. (I can buy a new printer for less than that.) I
rang the guy who repaired it for me. He recommended installing the
latest driver from HP. I did that. But it didn't notice any change.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Ron
 
Hi,

This printer was purchased in 1996 for $800, and having spent much of
its life on a 486 running Win 3.11 has given great service. It prints
an immaculate, perfectly clean copy with its 600dpi. The test page is
beautiful. During this time it has printed word processing documents
exclusively from this PC, and an occasional chart, which also prints
well.

Given its great service, I have moved the printer to my new PC running
Windows XP. And it still prints text beautifully. However, this PC is
connected to the web, and I feel let down by it in regard to the poor
print image it puts out. Help!

I recently bought a scanner, and images scanned print very poorly.
Help!

In fact, it wants to print at 300dpi all the time, and if I force it
to go 600dpi the print image is only partially improved and generally
spreads the print job over two pages, rather than one! I also note
that the image quality (crispness of the image varies over the page).

The manual tended to indicate that the problem might be a lack of
memory, but I'm not sure. This printer is advertised on ebay for
between $40 and $150. HP suppliers said memory chips will cost
between $300-$500. (I can buy a new printer for less than that.) I
rang the guy who repaired it for me. He recommended installing the
latest driver from HP. I did that. But it didn't notice any change.

Any advice would be appreciated.
Click to expand...


Shortage of RAM does classically cause the page to be split, when the
memory gets full it ejects and starts a new one, but variation in
image quality sounds more like a problem with toner.

So you do need more RAM.
But you don't need to buy it from HP.

See for instance TPW:
<http://www.printerworks.com/Catalogs/AX-Catalog/AX_SupplyAcces.html#SIMMS>
They have 4MB for $29.50, or 8MB for $39.
Also, you can use the part numbers "C3148A" for 4 MB (I wouldn't
bother with smaller) or "C3149A" for 8 MB listed to search elsewhere
for a cheaper deal. Occasionally they'll turn up on eBay, but not when
I just looked.
 
I recently bought a scanner, and images scanned print very poorly.
Help!

In fact, it wants to print at 300dpi all the time, and if I force it
to go 600dpi the print image is only partially improved and generally
spreads the print job over two pages, rather than one! I also note
that the image quality (crispness of the image varies over the page).
Click to expand...

The last point suggests your 8-year-old printer may
be unable to print as you expect . . .
But the main consideration is the software you use
to manipulate scans. Photoshop LE (free under
various circumstances) lets you specify the printable
size and dot density of a scanned image: and the
scanning software lets you specify size and dot
density before the scan is made.

Repost saying what software you use (1) to scan,
(2) to print.
 
You can also get memory from eBay for $10-15 for 8MB but watch the shipping.

Chris
 
The last point suggests your 8-year-old printer may
be unable to print as you expect . . .
But the main consideration is the software you use
to manipulate scans. Photoshop LE (free under
various circumstances) lets you specify the printable
size and dot density of a scanned image: and the
scanning software lets you specify size and dot
density before the scan is made.

Repost saying what software you use (1) to scan,
(2) to print.
Click to expand...
The scanner is an HP and the software came with it. HP call it "HP
Director" which manages the scanner and what you want to do with it,
and "HP Image Zone" which allows some manipulation of scans. HP
Director does let you select various settings,

The image quality of stuff printed directly from the web also appears
"out of focus". Text prints very well, and small imags are crisp.
The lager ones have a fuzziness to them that annoys me.

You would think that a printer that bosts 600dpi would be okay. And
as I mentioned earlier, the test page is perfect.

Ron
 
You would think that a printer that bosts 600dpi would be okay. And
as I mentioned earlier, the test page is perfect.
Click to expand...

If the test page is OK then it must be a software problem. What printer
driver are you using? As far as I know, HP only produced one updated driver
for this printer (version B).

My 5L is nearly 10 years old and still going strong. I recently put it on a
home network, forcing me to change from the GDI driver to the PCL driver. I
stuck in a 9MB memory card (cheap on eBay) and although it's a bit slower
now the print quality is as good as ever.

Mike
 
The scanner is an HP and the software came with it. HP call it "HP
Director" which manages the scanner and what you want to do with it,
and "HP Image Zone" which allows some manipulation of scans. HP
Director does let you select various settings,

The image quality of stuff printed directly from the web also appears
"out of focus". Text prints very well, and small imags are crisp.
The lager ones have a fuzziness to them that annoys me.

You would think that a printer that bosts 600dpi would be okay. And
as I mentioned earlier, the test page is perfect.
Click to expand...


Even 600 dpi lasers aren't great for images; especially colour ones
which software has to convert to some approximation of greyscale on
the fly. Before blaming your printer, compare with another 600 dpi
laser and see if it's much better.

I your web printing, the text is Truetype, and that basically is what
the 5L is optimised for. The small images are probably GIF images,
which have a maximum of 256 different colours, so are fairly easy to
convert to greyscale. The larger images are probably JPEGs, and likely
optimised for viewing on screen, in colour and lower resolution. They
are inherently "fuzzy". Making them b/w involves some conversions and
approximations. To make this kind of image look good on a b/w laser
isn't trivial.
 
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