* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 8150 Series Printers Firmware Update/Download Release/Installation Notes * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ReadMe File Contents: I. Introduction --Purpose of this ReadMe File --Who needs this Firmware? --Determining the current level of firmware II. Upgrade Instructions --Single Printer Upgrade --For Windows systems --For UNIX systems --For Macintosh systems --Using HP Web JetAdmin to upgrade the firmware to a single printer --Multiple Printer Upgrade --Using HP Web JetAdmin to upgrade the firmware to multiple printers --Printer messages during a normal upgrade process --Troubleshooting a firmware upgrade III. Improvements provided with this firmware revision --Improvements provided with previous firmware revisions IV. Technical Assistance V. Legal Statements ************************************************** I. INTRODUCTION ************************************************** PURPOSE OF THIS README FILE This ReadMe file provides specific installation instructions and other information you should know before you perform a firmware upgrade for your LJ 8150 Series printer. Installation instructions are provided for Single or Multiple Printer Upgrades. This file provides specific installation and troubleshooting information. For additional information on the printer features, refer to the online user guide found on the Windows Printing System Installer CD-ROM that came with your printer. WHO NEEDS THIS FIRMWARE? Similar to Hewlett Packard providing improved software for your LJ 8150, Hewlett Packard will be providing firmware upgrades for your printer throughout its lifecycle. A firmware upgrade may be necessary if it is determined that you may benefit from an improvement that is documented below in section "III". DETERMINING THE CURRENT LEVEL OF FIRMWARE To determine the current level of firmware installed on the printer: 1. Go to the printer control panel. 2. Press Menu until INFORMATION MENU appears on the control panel display. 3. Press < Item > until PRINT CONFIGURATION appears on the control panel display. 4. Press Select to print the Configuration Page. 5. Look in the Printer Information section of the Configuration Page to find the Firmware Datecode. The Firmware Datecode will look something like this: 20000605 MB7.84 **************************************************** II. UPGRADE INSTRUCTIONS **************************************************** UPGRADING THE NEW FIRMWARE TO A SINGLE PRINTER ------------------------------------------------- You can send an .RFU upgrade to a printer at any time; the printer will wait for all I/O channels to become idle before cycling power. NOTE: If the firmware upgrade involves a change in the format of NVRAM, the NVRAM settings will be lost and must be set again by the customer. The elapsed time for an upgrade depends on the I/O transfer time as well as the time that it takes for the printer to reinitialize. The I/O transfer time will depend on a number of things including the speed of the host computer sending the upgrade and the I/O method (FIR, parallel, or network). The re-initialization time will depend on the specific hardware configuration of the printer, such as the number of EIO devices installed, the presence of external paper handling devices, and the amount of memory installed. Finally, any print jobs ahead of the .RFU job in the queue will be printed before the .RFU upgrade is processed. NOTE: The printer will automatically restart after processing the upgrade. FOR WINDOWS SYSTEMS: ---------------------------------------- If the printer is shared on the network, then the following command can be issued from a command prompt: copy /b FILENAME \\SHARENAME\PRINTERNAME where FILENAME is the name of the .RFU file, SHARENAME is the name of the machine, from which the printer is being shared, and PRINTERNAME is the printer's share name. If the printer is attached locally, then the .RFU file can be sent directly to the printer with a COPY command from a command prompt or DOS window: copy /b FILENAME PORTNAME where FILENAME is the name of the .RFU file and PORTNAME is the name of the appropriate printer port (such as LPT 1). You can also send the file via a Fast Infrared (FIR) port. FOR UNIX SYSTEMS: ------------------------------------- Any method that delivers the .RFU file to the printer will work, including: $ cp /home/yourmachine/FILENAME /dev/parallel where /home/yourmachine/FILENAME contains the .RFU file. FOR MACINTOSH SYSTEMS: ---------------------- 1. The first step in upgrading the LaserJet 8150 firmware is making sure you have the tools and files necessary for the update. You will need the HP LaserJet Utility and the xxxxxx.rfu file that you downloaded with this readme. The rfu file is the actual firmware file for the LaserJet. The HP LaserJet Utility is found on the software CD-ROM that was shipped in-box with your printer. If you do not have the software CD-ROM, you can obtain the HP LaserJet Utility by going to www.hp.com on the world wide web and downloading the latest installer for you LaserJet printer. 2. Once you have the firmware file and the HP LaserJet Utility you are ready to begin the upgrade process. 3. Launch the LaserJet Utility. (Attention Mac OS X users: The HP LaserJet Utility is a Classic only application. You must have a version of Mac OS 9 installed to use as the Classic environment in order to launch the HP LaserJet Utility.) 4. Click on the Select Printer button and locate the printer you would like to upgrade on the network. 5. Once the printer is located select it on the right hand side of dialog and click OK. You will be presented with an information screen for your printer with some options on the left. 6. Select the button on the left side of the Utility that says "Files". 7. You will get a dialog that allows you to select a file to be downloaded to the printer. Click on the Select File button and locate the xxxxxxxx.rfu file on your hard disk. 8. Highlight the file by clicking on it and then click the "Select" button. The Files dialog should then update by listing the file you have selected in the "File to download" section. 9. Click on the "Download" button. The Utility will then start downloading the file to the printer. A progress bar across the bottom will keep you updated on how much of the file has been downloaded. While the file is downloading, the printer will display a message stating "Receiving Upgrade" 10. Once the file is completely downloaded to the printer the display on the LaserJet will show the message "Performing Upgrade". 11. When the upgrade process has completed the LaserJet will reboot. Once the printer is back online, print a Configuration Page to verify that the new firmware has been installed. USING HP WEB JETADMIN TO UPGRADE THE FIRMWARE TO A SINGLE PRINTER ------------------------------------------------------------------ This procedure requires that Web JetAdmin v. 6.1 or later is installed. The following steps will upgrade a single printer through HP Web JetAdmin after downloading the .RFU file from the HP Web site. 1. Start HP Web JetAdmin. 2. Enter the IP address or IP hostname of the printer in the Quick Device Find field, and then click Go. The printer's Status window appears. 3. Click the right arrow on the toolbar to display the Update button. 4. Click Update. 5. When prompted for the type of update to perform, select Update Printers and click Continue. 6. Under Upload new firmware image, click Browse to locate the .RFU file you downloaded from the http://www.hp.com Web site. 7. Click Upload to move the .RFU file from your hard drive to the HP Web JetAdmin server. 8. Refresh the browser. 9. Select the .RFU file from the Select new firmware version: drop-down menu. 10. Click Update Firmware. HP Web JetAdmin sends the selected .RFU file to the printer. MULTIPLE PRINTER UPGRADE ------------------------- USING HP WEB JETADMIN TO UPGRADE THE FIRMWARE TO MULTIPLE PRINTERS ------------------------------------------------------------------- This procedure requires that Web JetAdmin v. 6.1 or later is installed. The following steps will upgrade a single printer through HP Web JetAdmin after downloading the .RFU file from the HP Web site. 1. Start HP Web JetAdmin. 2. Create a device group. A simple way to do this is to: a. Select Devices from the 1. Choose: drop-down menu. b. Select Device Model from the 2. Filter: drop-down menu. c. Type 8150 in the 3. Criteria (Optional): field. d. Click Go. 3. In the Device List, select the printers you want to include in the group and click Create Group. 4. When prompted, type a name for the new device group and click OK. 5. Click Update. 6. When prompted for the type of update to perform, select Update Printers and click Continue. 7. From the list of HP Devices, select the printers to be upgraded or click Select All. 8. Click Update to install the new printer firmware. ************************************************************** PRINTER MESSAGES DURING A NORMAL UPGRADE PROCESS ************************************************************** The printer displays three messages during a normal upgrade process: Printer message Explanation -------------------------------------------------------------------- RECEIVING UPGRADE Displayed from the time the printer recognizes the beginning of an .RFU upgrade until the time the printer has verified the validity and integrity of the .RFU upgrade. UPGRADING PRINTER Displayed while the printer is actually reprogramming the DIMM with the .RFU upgrade. WAIT FOR PRINTER TO Displayed from the time the printer has REINITIALIZE finished re-programming the DIMM until the printer reinitializes. NOTE: To verify that the firmware upgrade succeeded, print a Configuration page from the printer's control panel and verify that the firmware datecode shown on the Configuration page is the same as the datecode of the .RFU file you downloaded. ************************************************************** TROUBLESHOOTING A FIRMWARE UPGRADE ************************************************************** The following table lists causes and results for possible interruptions to the firmware upgrade. CAUSE RESULT ---------------------------------------------------------------- Job cancelled from printer No upgrade has occurred. control panel Resend upgrade. Break in I/O stream during send No upgrade has occurred. (for example, parallel Resend upgrade. cable removed) Power cycle during RECEIVING No upgrade has occurred. UPGRADE Resend upgrade. Power cycle during UPGRADING Resend upgrade. PRINTER Power cycle during Upgrade completed. WAIT FOR PRINTER TO REINITIALIZE Print jobs sent to the printer while an upgrade is in process will not interrupt the upgrade. The following table lists possible reasons for the failure of a Remote Firmware Upgrade and the corrective action to take for each situation. ------------------------------------------------------------------ REASON FOR FIRMWARE CORRECTIVE ACTION UPGRADE FAILURE ---------------------- ---------------------------------- .RFU file corrupted The printer will recognize that the file is corrupted and will reject the upgrade. Download the image again from the http://www.hp.com Web site and send the new file to the printer. Wrong printer model The printer will recognize the model in .RFU file mismatch and will reject the upgrade. Download the correct image from the http://www.hp.com Web site and send it to the printer. Upgrade interrupted See previous table. NOTE: All HP LaserJet 8150 series printers' ship from the factory with the latest available firmware version installed in a backup partition on the flash DIMM. If a Remote Firmware Upgrade fails, the printer can use the backup firmware to reboot. You can then attempt the Remote Firmware Upgrade again. *************************************************************** III. IMPROVEMENTS PROVIDED WITH THIS FIRMWARE REVISION *************************************************************** You may see improvements for the problems mentioned below by updating your printer's firmware with revision 20041013 MB7.119. * Paper jams with a 7 bin mailbox when coming out of power save mode. * Printing arial unicode glyphs causes 79.00FE printer crash (Postscript). * Multi-Bin Mailbox (MBM) and Tray 4 jam issues. IMPROVEMENTS PROVIDED WITH PREVIOUS FIRMWARE REVISIONS: -------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: ALL IMPROVMENTS WITH PREVIOUS REVISIONS OF FIRMWARE ARE INCLUDED WITHIN THE MOST CURRENT REVISIONS -------------------------------------------------------------- You may see improvements for the problems mentioned below by updating your printer's firmware with revision 20040114 MB7.115. * The "mu" scientific character, which represents the prefix "micro" prints with italics. * Some PCL files won't print correctly. * Compatibility problems when a copy module is attached. * Performance slows over time due to memory management and driver workspace issues. * 66.00.01 error occurs when coming out of deep power save mode with external paper handling device attached. * Print Quality issues with Adobe Illustrator when text is filled with a pattern on a curved path. * Printing Quark documents in a Unix environment. * Certain files printed from a software package called Cerol Plate Master may cause a 79.00FE error. * When language is set to German, the control panel on/off settings for the power save menu option are reversed. On really is off and vice versa. * When printing certain PostScript files the unit may receive a 79 service error. * Incorrect output caused by certain PostScript files. You may see improvements for the problems mentioned below by updating your printer's firmware with revision 20021010 MB7.109. * PCLXL jobs may not completely render when printed. * Cross Hatch filled graphics are hatched in the opposite direction. * Printing custom sized jobs to the 3K output bin while in powersave mode will result in a 66.00.62 error. * Some JPEG formatted files will not print from the Macintosh platform. * PS files may not print when a PS3 Font DIMM is installed. * Front control panel displays garbage text when in the Japanese Language. Improvements provided with firmware revision 20020311 MB7.104. * Certain Adobe PDF files would cause the printer to indefinitely display "PROCESSING JOB" on the control panel of the printer and the file would never print. * Certain Type 1 PostScript fonts displaying special characters used with the German language will not print correctly. * Certain EPS files in CMYK format that are imported into Quark Xpress v.4.04 or 4.11 may print out as a solid black fill. * The printer will generate a 79.01FE Service Error on the control panel when printing Duotones EPS files. * Some PostScript files created with GhostScript may generate intermittent horizontal lines above some text characters. * While printing certain PostScript documents you may see missing text and the printer may print the following error page: ERROR: invalidfont OFFENDING COMMAND: ashow STACK: ( ) 0 1 * Some PDF files may generate 79.XXXX ("X" may represent any hex number) service errors on the control panel of the printer. * When the default of the 5 bin Mailbox with Stapler (C4787A) is not set to staple and a print job is sent to the printer using the HP LaserJet 8150 PS driver with stapling selected; the output is not stapled. * When printing some large PDF files with many downloaded fonts the printer will generate a "20 INSUFFICIENT MEMORY" error on the control panel and then print the following PostScript error page: ERROR: MemoryFull OFFENDING COMMAND: definefont STACK: -dictionary- /KPBEBO+Arial-BoldMT * Some PostScript files may generate an erroneous doted line across the bottom of the page. * Printer may loose internal page counts and serial numbers. Improvements provided with firmware revision 20010925 MB7.96. * Certain PostScript documents would print out blank pages. * Certain PostScript files may generate the following error: error: undefined offending command: ~ * The printer would generate a "20 Insufficient Memory" message on the control panel when printing large jobs that request fonts and macro overlays from the printers hard disk. * Certain PostScript files may generate the following error: error: "invalid restore" offending command: "restore". * Corrected and event in which macros were used to call invoices and request different destinations for output. When the problem would occur, pages that were requested to be sent to the top output bin were being sent to the side output bin. * Certain PostScript 11"X17" duplexed documents requesting Booklet printing may generate the following error: error: "syntaxerror" offending command: > * You may see performance problems printing Japanese Excel 2000 spreadsheets that contain the font MS P Gothic when printing through the LJ 8150 PS driver. * Certain PDF files created with Ghostscript that contain mathematical Type 1 font sets may cause the printer to generate a 79.00FE error on the control panel. * 79.00FE error is displayed on the control panel of the printer when printing certain documents from Adobe FrameMaker and/or Ghostwiew from the UNIX environment. Improvements provided with firmware revision 20010426 MB7.92. * Some gray scale shading in PostScript graphics may be lighter when printed at 600 dpi or 1200 FastRes when compared to 300 dpi output. * Certain PostScript files may generate the following errors: stackoverflow error , offending command :--nostringval-- * When using Headers and Footers in Asian versions of Lotus 123 in the following operating systems W9x/NT4/W2k, parts of the text contained in the headers and Footers print Italic when they are not selected to be Italicized. * Product Enhancement: We have made a product enhancement to the Job Retention functionality provided by Hewlett Packard's printer drivers for this product. The Private Job functionality has now been enhanced to allow a user to print All Private Jobs sent to the printer with the same PIN number by entering the PIN number one time on the control panel of the printer. * When printing a multiple page job using PCL commands to call the first page from the printer to be manually fed from Tray one and following pages to pull automatically from tray one, the following pages print from Tray four. * Minion font missing tails when printed in PostScript * If you are saving files in the Macintosh environment in PhotoShop as dcs 2.0 with the jpeg encoding at high quality and then printing them from QuarkXpress, the files may appear to print at very low resolution. Files will print correctly if you save the files in PhotoShop as dcs 2.0, with the encoding binary or ASCII. * HP LaserJet 3000-sheet Stapler/Stacker (C4788A) will not staple a raw PostScript print job that does not contain job commands defining stapling even if the control panel default setting for stapling is activated. * You receive a 79.00FE error on the control panel of the printer when you use the JetSend functionality to send a document from a Hewlett Packard 9100C Digital Sender to a LJ 8150 Series Printer * When a third-party providers I/O filter solution is used with the Digital Copy Module the following issue may occur: Following a random number of copies that a user generates from the Digital Copy module, the printer will fail to generate further copy jobs. The Digital Copy Module also does not attempt to scan further pages in the Automatic Document Feeder or flatbed scanner. The printer can still receive and generate print jobs that originate from the network or parallel port. The only way for the printer to recover from this condition is for a user to reboot the printer. Improvements provided with firmware revision 20001215 MB7.89. * Certain Microsoft Excel 7.0 for Windows 95 files may have missing arrows when printing in Postscript. * Menu Maps generated from the Information Menu on the Control Panel of the printer will print incorrect information regarding duplex registration when the Control Panel language is Russian or Japanese. * Some Postscript files will print black pages where graphs should be when text is included describing the graphs. * You may see a 79.00FE error displayed on the control panel of the printer when sending two PS files in sequence * After downloading Postscript fonts to the printer's hard drive you may see performance degradation when printing documents that call these fonts from the hard drive. * Some Accents on characters may not align correctly when printing with the Postscript language. ************************************************************ IV. TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE ************************************************************ Some of the services below are provided for the United States only. Similar services to those listed below are available in other countries. See your printer's user guide or call your local authorized HP dealer. CUSTOMER SUPPORT See your printer's user guide or call your local authorized HP dealer. INTERNET An anonymous FTP library service is available worldwide for around-the-clock-access to drivers and technical support information for HP peripheral and computer products. Please note that paths may change without notice. Access the Internet or FTP address and use the menus to locate the software or support of your choice. * URL for HP LaserJet 8150 Series Support: http://www.hp.com/cposupport/nonjsnav/hplaserjet5940.html * URL for Software and Support: http://www.hp.com/go/support * URL for Access HP: http://www.hp.com * FTP address: ftp.hp.com Login: anonymous Password: your Internet email address HP SOFTWARE AND SUPPORT SERVICES - ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Refer to your printer's user guide for additional methods of obtaining software and support information, such as printer driver distribution centers other online services, fax services, and other online support. ****************************************** V. LEGAL STATEMENTS ****************************************** TRADEMARK NOTICES MS-DOS and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Excel 2000 is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation PostScript is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems, Incorporated. Adobe PhotoShop(tm) is a trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated. Adobe FrameMaker is a trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated. Quark and QuarkXpress are trademarks of Quark Inc. Macintosh is a trademark of Apple Computer Inc. Lotus (R) 1-2-3 (R) are U.S. registered trademarks of Lotus Development Corporation.