Why My Printer Won’t Print: 4 Ways to Troubleshoot Your Printer
The number of pages an office printer can produce in a month without failing starts at 20,000 pages. Higher-end models can produce as many as 100,000 pages per month.
But what happens when your printer fails? Then these numbers mean nothing. Now, you’re stuck with pending print jobs trying to figure out why my printer won’t print.
Keep reading to learn how to fix three common problems that cause printers not to print.
1. Printing Slow
If you find yourself waiting for what feels like forever to collect your finished print job, you don’t have to anymore. By reducing the print quality of the output, you can speed up the printing time and save on toner usage.
You can look in your printer settings to adjust the print quality on your specific machine. You can also adjust the print quality in Windows by changing the print quality from Normal to Draft mode.
2. Unidentified Toner Cartridge
This is one of the most common toner cartridge issues when people try to save money by buying aftermarket ink cartridges. The first thing you should do is check that you have a genuine product that’s approved by the manufacturer.
Then check to make sure that the cartridge is installed correctly, and you’ve removed all of the protective stickers and films.
Try turning off the printer, unplugging it, and then restarting it. If this doesn’t work, try to install an old cartridge and check that the printer recognizes it. If it does, then you know the problem is with the cartridge and not your printer.
3. The Mystery Jam
You click print, and nothing happens, then the printer starts alerting you of a jam. No problem, you open the printer and try to locate the jam. But there is nothing there.
You close the printer back up, thinking that’ll fix the issue. But the printer continues to alert you to a jam. No matter how hard you look, there’s no jam.
The problem is that there are small amounts of shredded paper still in the gears and sensors. This leads the printer to think that there is a jam even though there isn’t.
To fix this, you’ll want to look at the gears and make sure that everything is clear of debris and moves freely. Clean everything of paper shards or dust.
4. Printhead Clogged
If you don’t use your printer often, then the ink on the printer’s head begins to dry out. This dried ink is what causes clogging. A clogged printer head can trigger the printer to tell you that you need a new cartridge.
Instead of buying a new ink or toner cartridge, you can clean your current one. Blog the ink head with a damp paper towel until you see ink. Then hold a dry paper towel against it for 30 seconds.
This will flush out the dried ink.
Now I Know Why My Printer Won’t Print
Knowing why my printer won’t print will help you stay productive and keep your printer printing. Try these tricks to four of the most common issues to causing your printer not to work.
Follow our blog for helpful tips and tricks to keep your business running smooth.
