HP LaserJet 4050 4050N Printer

© Brooke Clarke 2013 - 2017

Background

I've had this printer for many years and it's been great.  Recently I upgraded my desktop motherboard and the new board does not have a printer connector.  A short term fix was to get a USB to Printer cable.  A better solution is to cable the printer to my 2Wire DSL router and connect via LAN.  The reason this is better is that now a wireless laptop can connect directly to the printer instead of going through the desktop via. a share printer.  This will work for the laptop even if the desktop is down, like during a power failure.

27 Feb 2013 - using the LAN to drive the printer is noticeably faster than the parallel port and faster than the USB-to-Printer cable.

June 6, 2017 - Getting 81.0180 EIO 1 ERROR.
This can be fixed by turning the power off and then back on.  This seems to be needed every other day. 
Since a working printer is mandatory for my business I got the HP LaserJet Pro M501dn printer which is almost exactly the same printer.

Replacing the HP jetdirect 625n LAN interface probably would fix it.

Installing this used HP jetdirect 625n LAN interface card failed to print anything. The card is probably bad. BUT . . . . After re-installing the old HP jetdirect 625n LAN interface card, so far the printer is working and has not shown the EIO 1 error.  Will check again tomorrow.

HP jetdirect 625n LAN interface card

I have one on order for $20 to see if that solves the problem.  Until I've used the new M501dn printer I won't know if it's a full replacement.

My HP 6200 scanner was the best one I ever had and there's no replacement scanner, for a reasonable price, that comes anywhere near it's performance so I'm cautious about how well the M501dn will work.

As a short term fix I got a new HP LaserJet Pro M501dn ("d" for duplexing and "n" for networking).
HP official specs.

Upgrades

The unused DB-9 jack is marked Accessory. The RS-232 cable is used when a laptop is used in place of the desktop computer and there's no other way of connecting. Below the RS-232 jack/cable is a DIN jack marked FIR. The Printer cable has a USB adapter on the other end to allow a USB port to make the connection. An optional hard drive is installed in the EIO2 slot.. A LAN cable goes to the at&t 2Wire DSL router allowing direct wireless connection to the printer from any computer on the 802.11 WiFi network. The LAN card is an HP jetdirect 625n is installed int he EIO1 slot.		The optional duplexer is installed and is a great thing.  It cuts the paper useage almost in half. The duplexer rear door is broken and so has been removed.

Configuring LAN operation 

Cold Reset Printer

• Power Down
• Press and hold green (Go) Button
• Power Up and continue to hole green button until COLD RESET appears in display then release button

This will force the LAN card to get an address from the router.

Print Printer Configuration page (WIN XP)

• Press Menu repeatedly until the display shows INFORMATION MENU
• Press Item repeatedly until the display shows PRINT CONFIGURATION
• Press SELECT to get the configuration page printed
• Note the HP JetSend Address.  In my case it was 192.168.1.71.

Computer Printer Configuration

	Click on image for larger image. If cursor is (+) click again
Open Control Panel and Open Printers and FAXes Double click on Add Printer	Fig 1
Double click on Add Printer	Fig 2
At the Add Printer Wizzard title page click NEXT	Fig 3
Check the circle for "Local printer attached to this computer" & do NOT check "automatically detect . . . .", click NEXT	Fig 4
Check the circle for "Create a new nort" and select "Standard TCP/IP Port", cleck NEXT	Fig 5
A new window will open on top of the prior Add Printer Wizzard window called "Add Standard TCP/IP Printer Port", click NEXT	Fig 6
Enter the IP address of the printer you found on the printer configuration printed page above (192.168.1.71). I've added a 3 in the Port Name field because I've already used the names IP_192.168.1.71 for a Post Script (PS) printer and IP2_192.168.1.71 for a PCL6 printer so am using IP3-192.168.1.71 for this description.	Fig 7
If there are no error messages you should see the summary window for the Add Standard TCP/IP Printer Port wizzard.  Click FINISH.	FGig 8
The Add Printer Wizzard now will display a list of printer drivers allowing you to select your printer and printer language.  Click NEXT.	Fig 9
The Add Printer Wizzard will make up a long name for the printer, but it's better to come up with your own much shorter name. Click NEXT.	Fig 10
In this case LAN4050PCL6demo (because I already have  used LAN4050PCL6 Click NEXT.	Fig 11
For a Share Name I used LAN4050P3 Click NEXT.	Fig 12
You can fill in (or not) Location and/or Comment info. Click NEXT.	Fig 13
It's a very good idea to print a test page to be sure it's working. Click NEXT.	Fig 14
Here's a page showing that data. Click NEXT.	Fig 15
Upon restarting the Control Panel Printers and FAXs window you will now see the new printer. Right click PROPERTIES. You can come back to this window from Control Panel and select any printer and right click and "Use as default printer".	Fig 16
In the properties window there are tabs: General - Information Sharing - turn sharing on or off Ports - Add, Delete or Configure a port (it comes up with the selected printer highligted) Advanced - spooling, sperator page, defaults, etc. Device Settings - enable the printer options like Duplex, Hard Drive, Expanded RAM memory, etc	Fig 17

Related

at&t DSL
PC Support

Panasonic CF-28 Toughbook Laptop Computer
Panasonic CF-30 Toughbook Laptop Computer

Links

Back to Brooke's Products for Sale, Alphabetic web page index, Home web page

page created 20 Feb 2013.