For the most part, WiFi outweighs any nuisances that can happen with its use. Because WiFi has become common place, the airwaves have become increasingly busy. Unfortunately, it can cause disruptions and or issues when printing from a wireless printer, copier or multifunction device.
Why your wireless printer doesn’t work all the time
Remember a time when you could listen in on conversations between neighbors through the radio? This is called transmitter interference. Now, think of the times you open your smartphone to and want to link to a WiFi connection – likely you see several to choose from. Combine those two together and you get WiFi cross over. There are so many “wires” crossing over each other and competing within the WiFi world, that it can cause different disruptions and unreliability. The same goes for a wireless printer – it is fighting for air time on the wireless network.
If files are large it takes up more bandwidth, thus impacting the accessibility to the WiFi. That file, or bandwidth is competing against any other connections. Should the connection be poor because of other competing connections, a delay or even complete stop on the document printing will occur.
Another way to look at this is like when you are waiting in line at the store, but you need to be finished quickly. The lady at the cashier is now going to use coupons for every single item from her cart. The wait time becomes longer and your ice cream starts to melt. Printing over wireless connections can similar in waiting for their turn.
Common issues that may arise with wireless printers & WiFi connections
There can a number of small issues that come with a wireless printer, here are some of the ones that directly impact your office equipment:
- 100’s of pages printed of jumbled “code” or hieroglyphics
- very slow colour printing
- scan to email doesn’t work
- printer not connected – even though it appears to be happy and connected
Troubleshooting wireless printer issues
Outside of hard wiring your printer to your computer, there is no real fix. However, if you want to continue using the wireless feature, here are a couple of “quick fix” things you can do
- move the printer as close to a router as possible
- cancel print jobs on the computer
- reboot the printer from the main power switch
Unfortunately, the downfall for these is that they can become annoying and not helping you be productive in your office.
To get help on this, or to learn more on How WiFi affects your wireless office equipment – contact us here at Com Pro at 604-574-8623