19. Help! My printer has stopped working.
Printers can stop working for many reasons, but they fall into three general groups:
- Faults arising within the printer itself: these can be issues such as paper jams, toner or ink cartridges being empty, or printer hardware failures.
- Faults arising within the computer: usually the result of incorrectly configured or recently installed software, a shortage of available disk space on the computer, or a hardware failure.
- Physical connection problems between your computer and the printer. This could be the connecting cable, network cable, or the print server (if there is one) malfunctioning.
In cases where you can clear the fault yourself, such as a paper jam or empty ink or toner cartridge, your printer control system should display a message on your own computer, explaining the fault and, in many cases, how to fix it.
Otherwise, other than obvious issues such as a dislodged printer connection or power cable, you will probably need a technically competent engineer to diagnose and fix the problem.
We have some! Please contact our helpdesk for further advice.
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