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Recently bought a Samsung CLX-3175FN all-in-one color laserjet printer. It's tiny for a laser printer and has very low per-page toner costs. Sweet! Well, almost.

More often than not, printing simply doesn't work from Windows XP. Print jobs stay in the spooler queue forever with an "error" status, the printer says "printing" but never does. Sometimes, after a lengthy timeout, the printer issues an error protocol.

The utilities delivered with the printer are able to print reports and test pages, but Notepad, Word and Excel usually fail to print.

I've upgraded to the latest drivers from the manufacturer's site, dated 15 December 09. The printer is connected via USB cable.

My guess would be that the drivers insert erroneous data in some/most print output, which the printer then chokes on. Any hints on what I can do to resolve these errors?

Update:

Printing works for small text-only documents without a lot of colors and background graphics. Large, colorful documents bomb.

Update 2:

Problem solved, works fine via Ethernet. Maybe these printers have a cheap USB interface.

3 Answers 3

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Does this printer have any emulatioon models like HP LaserJet 4 or some other common printer? If so, try that.

It appears to have Ethernet connectivity. Have you tried configuring and printing to the ethernet port.

Also check on the print properties page on the advanced tab. You will find the Print Processor button. Click and see what processor is used. You can sometimes change to the Windows Default RAW print processor. This has helped me resolve an issue with an HP all-in-one. It is easy to change back it it does not help.

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  • Lots of suggestions, thank you! * No emulation modes. * Ethernet would require setting up a network just for this printer - I'll try that if I get desparate. * Processor is currently at RAW, I've tried a couple of others also. Jan 7, 2010 at 13:22
  • PC was fine with a different printer via USB, printer was fine with a different PC via USB, but the combination didn't fly. Hooking up via network helped. Thanks for the winning suggestion :) Jan 21, 2010 at 12:46
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Report back on a happy ending, for anyone reading this looking for help with a similar problem.


I called the overpriced Samsung hotline, they recommended:

  • a shorter USB cable;
    I went from a 3 meter (= 9 foot) cable to a 1 meter cable, with no success.
  • updating the drivers for the motherboard;
    Ran Everest Home, found the make & model for the MoBo, upgraded drivers, no success.

The support guy didn't seem happy at all to hear I was using USB. I get the idea these printers are mostly used in a company environment and off a TCP/IP network.

Indeed, DaveM's second suggestion bore fruit: Since I wasn't getting anywhere with USB, I hooked the printer up with a network cable. Samsung's instruction manual has lots of text on network setup, but it's more confusing than anything. They mention about 3 different ways to set the IP address of your interface on the PC side but fail to mention that the Ethernet interface needs some setting up on the printer side as well.

Turns out the printer menu lets you print out a network config report, which will tell you the factory default for network address is 192.0.0.192. I had no problem with that; I set the PC's LAN interface (manually, fixed) to 192.0.0.1, same for the gateway, and a mask of 255.255.255.0 . The printer setup then found the printer easily.

I can now print documents of any complexity.

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  • I've helped a few people with a similar CLX-3170FN printer through TCP/IP. Unfortunately, when using DHCP (which you're NOT using) the printer drivers don't seem to handle changes of IP addresses too well. For those people I've assigned the printer a fixed IP address in the router. (Thanks for reporting back!)
    – Arjan
    Jan 21, 2010 at 12:53
  • Thank you too, Arjan! The printer's manual says that if your address is likely to change, the Bonjour protocol would be the most suitable. This may help in situations similar to what you described. However, since I had the option available and didn't want to risk any sporadic surprises, I went with fixed. Jan 23, 2010 at 20:09
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I just had the same problem, but with a Samsung CLX-3175, which hasn't got an ethernet port, so that's not an option for me. It's been driving me mad (it's now 1am - I've been pulling my hair out for the last 2 night!) - the printer just sits there saying "printing", when it isn't, and it stubbornly refuses to print anything!!! I was ready to throw it out of the window, or at least take it back to the shop.

But wait - I just noticed the icon in the taskbar for my previous printer (a Lexmark) was alternating between a funny kind of L inside of a D type shape and the same shape but with an X inside it, like it's telling me one minute that my Lexmark is there, and the next it isn't. (It isn't). Hmm. I wonder if it's sending something down the USB to see if my old Lexmark is still there...

I disabled the Lexmark driver and hurraahhhhhhhh!!!

My Samsung works!!!!!

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  • Ooh, good answer! I wonder if I might have been having trouble with the old HP printer still being installed? My problem's solved but others may appreciate the hint, thanks! Jan 24, 2010 at 16:59

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