HP Designjet 500 error 02:10 ribbon problems- trailing cable

I went to use the HP Designjet 500 and upon switching it on I noticed the print carriage stopping abruptly half way along the bed. Looking inside I noticed the ribbon which connects to the carriage was crumpled and had dried ink all over it. Thought this was causing the problem because it was unable to slide along with the carriage so I cleaned it.

After this it's had a few problems loading the paper, and also whilst printing. Just noticed this "System Error 02:10".

Found a few forums on the subject referring to the carriage and print heads. Replaced yellow printhead adn while it was performing an alignment it came up with:
System Error:  79:04

Found this (right at the bottom) one saying it was the connection with the ribbon cable. Looks like it's not getting the right 2.5V signal from the carriage. Needs reseating. Otherwise replace the cable.

The trouble is: How to get into the printer to reseat the cable? Looks like a bit of work.

Found a quick little tutorial on how to get the main cover off. Simply remove the three screws (hex) on the back main part. I unclipped the lift up cover, and you need to unclip the main cover by lifting it up.

Not sure how to remove the side panels.

I reseated the cables on the print carriage but after doing about 2 inches of print on a 36" roll it came up with this error again.

Found a service manual for the HP Designjet 500.
The error is found in section 2-8, carriage failure. It says to replace the Carriage Assembly, but my suspisions point to specifically the "Trailing Cable" as this was quite bent, possibly shorting when the carriage is moving.
To replace the "Trailing Cable" go to section 8-40

Looks like the trailing cable is about £15 so pretty cheap to try out.

If this doesn't work perhaps a carriage assembly. About £120 refurbished, or £350 new



Note ...................
7th Feb 2013
So, it's 3 months on and I finally got the chance to install a new "Trailing Cable". Nothing to note about changing the cable over, the manual is quite self explanatory. The only thing I found was that the torx screws were not size T20, were actually a size or two smaller.

After installation it worked perfectly!

Fixed.

Windows Vista Laptop dwmredir.dll error on login

A staff member brought their laptop in. Upon booting it up it auto logs in but before it can load the desktop or anything it comes up with the error:


"C:\Windows\system32\dwmredir.dll is either not designed to run on Windows or it contains an error. Try installing the program again using the original installation media or contact your system administrator or the software vendor for support.


Found this microsoft tech forum which suggests:

1. restore to just before this happened - unfortunately there is no restore points!!
2. try a clean boot
1. goto -> run -> msconfig
2. disable startups
3. disable non microsoft startups
4. try and rule out which one is causing it
3. tryed these to no avail. Still no desktop

Found this forum which says to run some error checking thing called "System File Checker". From command line type:

sfc /scannow

............

I've just found this post under "drafts". Looks like I didn't finish the post. From what I remember, I think I booted in Safe Mode, turned on the installation service (see previous post), installed Tune Up Utilities and ran "One Stop Maintenance". I think this is how I fixed it.


Simple.

Toshiba Satellite U400 lights always on

A member of staff brought in their laptop which I'd fixed just the other day (they'd accidentally switched the wireless off). She was saying how the lights for the "soft keys" at the top of the keyboard were always on.

I thought this wasn't so much of a problem, but actually it probably wouldn't be too good wasting the battery so much. I looked into it. At first I thought it was set up through the BIOS. I found an "Illumition" setting mentioned in this post so I had a look. I switched it off. This had no effect though.

My next guess was to look into windows and the many Toshiba apps that they put on. These were all rubbish but found one which let you change the same setting in the BIOS.

I found it mentioned that it might be due to a Microsoft Update so I took it through System Restore to undo all the updates. This didn't have any effect either.

Finally I thought of taking the battery out and putting it back in (just to see what it looked like with the buttons not light up). Once I'd put the battery back in, the lights didn't light up. In fact they'd stopped lighting up altogether!

I rebooted a few times and it looks like it worked. I even turned on "Illumination" and the lights came back on. And on switching it off they turned off, beautiful.

So in conclusion. Just take the battery out and put it back in again. Also disconnect from power source.

Fixed.

Cheers.