HP LaserJet 1012
Thursday, March 11th, 2004
My trusty Apple LaserWriter 12/640 PS died the other day after many many years of heavy use with no problems at all. It has been the most taken for granted and trouble free tool in our little digital world here. Actually, it didn’t die, we just could not get the paper tray light to go out which meant that the switch that is flipped when the tray is in and out died. Fixable but…
I gave the printer to a friend who will fix it I’m sure and use it for another 10 years.
The printer universe has changed considerably since I shopped for printers and I wasn’t quite sure what to do. A friend had just bought an HP LaserJet 1012 ($199) and liked it. Rather than wrack my brains doing a lot of research, I drove down to the nearest Staples and bought a 1012 with a few extra toner cartridges.
This is a small printer, the size of many ink jets which is amazing to me considering I had the very first LaserWriter which was a monster and the one that just died was not too small either.
We needed to be able to network this printer like our old one and it uses USB as an interface. No problem with an AirPort base station: plug it in, install drivers, Rendezvous sees it, done.
The printer works like a charm. Prints faster and quieter than the old LaserWriter and goes to sleep almost instantly. No AppleTalk bridging needed anymore so we were able to turn AppleTalk off.
If this printer lasts half as long as my LaserWriter I’ll be happy. So far, I highly recommend it.
The HP LaserJet 1012 is not on Apple’s OS X compatibility list and therefore not fully supported. I’ve been having nothing but trouble with the one I bought. Apple has washed their hands stating it is not compatible, period! I am forced to return mine for a refund. More Mac users should be made aware of this printers problems. It is not recommended for Mac OS X by Apple and many are beginning to report “opening printer communications failures.”
I’ve had mine for a while and have no problems with it. I have it connected to an AirPort Extreme base station via USB and it prints just fine. I used Rendezvous to “discover” it and once done I never seem to have problems, I print, it works. And, as I said in my original post, I leave it on all the time and it sleeps but wakes up almost instantly when I print.
When I bought this printer it was being sold in Apple Stores and on their web site. Not sure if it is anymore but again, I’m not having any problems with it at all. I just checked, it’s still being sold by Apple at their web store and there’s nothing about incompatibility there at all. I know 3 other OS X users using this printer and I’ve not heard anything about problems from any of them.
I use this with MacOS X Panther and use the latest MacOS X drivers from HP’s website. I couldn’t get any MacOS native (the pre-bundled drivers) to work, but HPs work each time.
Here’s one for you – see if you can figure it out.
I plugged my HP 1012 into our home airport extreme network via the USB port. I am using an ibook G3 and 10.2.8 and had the driver previously installed since I used to connect directly. It worked great printing through the network. No problems at all.
I left for a business trip. While I was gone, my roommate downloaded the driver for the printer to her ibook G4 using 10.3. Even though her computer said the software was installed, rendezvous could not add the printer. So she tried unplugging the USB from the network and plugging it directly into her computer. Still couldn’t find it all. She plugged the USB back into airport extreme and tried the network one more time. Now she can’t even access her rendezvous menu AT ALL. She gave up out of frustration.
I come home from my trip and try to print on the network. Now my computer can’t find the printer either. I tried the USB cable directly, and it works for me only as a local printer. Like it’s not on the network at all. My rendezvous doesn’t see it either.
I don’t know what she did, nor what is wrong with her networking settings, because HER ibook is the base station for the airport extreme. All I know is the once working (for me) networked HP 1012 no longer works across the network at all.
Any ideas or suggestions? WTF? It is the most frustrating thing ever.
Melissa: please explain this further:
“HER ibook is the base station for the airport extreme”
Not sure I get what you mean by that.
I have a flying saucer-shaped AirPort Extreme Base station. To that I have the above printer connected via USB. To “find” the printer wirelessly I used Rendezvous (renamed “Bonjour” in Tiger).
Even though we are using different systems, you should have a print utility application in your utilities folder. Run that and see what’s up with the printer.
If somehow you still can’t see it, how about resetting the AirPort base station.
How about cycling the power on the printer and playing with or changing the USB cable.
Try the hardware stuff first, then play with print utility and get your roommate’s machine off the networking while you’re trying all of this.
There should be a single base station: the airport flying saucer. If you set up a machine as a second base station that may be what’s confusing Rendezvous.
No, our airport extreme is the little square bugger, about the size and dimensions of the power unit. Not the flying saucer. We’ve got the cable modem hooked up to it, and she created the airport network on her computer. So the network status stuff is on her computer. When I check the network settings on her laptop, it shows the printer attached to the network via USB. Her computer says the driver is installed on her laptop. But not only is she unable to add the printer via rendevous, or as a USB local printer, now she cannot access rendezvous at all. She goes to change the pull down menu from appletalk and it quits the program altogether.
When we first set the network up, since I owned the printer, I hooked it up to the airport extreme via the single USB slot. I logged into the network and had no problem printing wirelessly to the printer at that time. She didn’t even mess with it because she didn’t have the driver yet. When I got back from my business trip, she told me of her problems after downloading the driver, and I discovered I could no longer access the printer via the network either. I could still print via the USB cable as a local printer. She is unable to print at all.
I’ve tried all you suggested – I am at a total loss. I am thinking she messed with more than she is fessing up to, thus obliterating the network’s ability to access the printer somehow. But I don’t know what, where to look, or how to start over.
Correction – it’s an airport express. Might that be the difference?
Aha, that’s more interesting and I have no experience with direct connection from it to printer. I have one, but only as a wireless relay to extend my network and connect to my stereo.
I’d reconnect the cable, reset the airport express, restart the printer then dig into your airport admin utility to see what’s what.
Sorry, this is a different setup from what I have and the express has fewer controls on it than the “extreme.” Not that it won’t do what you want, I just don’t know HTF to do it. Come back with more questions, I might be able to help with more specific stuff as I’ve set up and troubleshot a lot of airport networks.
Yeah, I knew it was a stumper. Especially since it did work at first, and now doesn’t.
Damn… sorry Melissa… Try to do some resetting and see if, after you kick its butt it gets its shit togehter, so to speak. Sometimes this works for me with cable modem/router/computer problems.
In response to Michael, I must report that I’ve had the 1012 for about a year now, and it’s working great with my late model PowerBook G4. In setting it up, all I did was download the driver from HP, and I was in business. It’s been very dependable. I have the 1012′s USB cable plugged into an Airport Extreme base station. The wireless connection has been lost a few times, but it’s easily re-established by unplugging and plugging the cable back in.
Gary, that’s been exactly my experience. My only regret about this printer is its resolution, not the networkability of it through my AirPort. My next printer will have more resolution and maybe be in color. Actually, this one was cheap enough (I got it for $150) that I could afford another now… Oh boy, let’s see.
Actually, in terms of speed my next printer hopefully will have an ethernet port on it rather than USB. This is not in response to Melissa’s problems but just because it will make printing even faster than it is already. Still connect it to my AirPort base station but through ethernet rather than USB.
Melissa,
If your cable modem and printer are plugged into the Airport Express, you should be able to connect to it directly even if it is setup from your roomie’s computer.
The Apple support site is pretty helpful with this stuff. I was just helping a friend with this so it should work. (He had a different printer but similar setup)