One Plastic Bag at a Time

Remember when I went around my house unplugging all those chargers?. Remember how happy I was just a few days ago when I was rewarded for my good deeds with an electric bill under $50?

Imagine my surprise then when I plugged in my Canon S300 printer yesterday to print an important document and couldn't get it to print. I got the green light, then a blinking orange light. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Green light. Orange blink. blink. blink. blink. blink. blink. blink. Green light. I think you get the idea.

Now I'm pretty technologically savvy, so I started going through the standard troubleshooting process.

Turned the printer off. Turned it on. Green light. Orange blink. blink. blink. blink. blink. blink. blink. Repeat.

Disconnected the printer and reconnected to my laptop. Green light. Orange blink. blink. blink. blink. blink. blink. blink. Repeat.

I opened the printer, took out the cartridges, put them back in, closed the printer up. Green light. Orange blink. blink. blink. blink. blink. blink. blink. Repeat.

The clock is ticking, it's getting late, still no document. I resort to the tried and true method I use when my 17 month old lubes my cell phone with five gallons of saliva. I pick up the printer and slam it on the table several times.

Green light. Orange blink. blink. blink. blink. blink. blink. blink. Repeat.

Are you getting irritated reading that? It's only a fraction of how pissed off I was at this point.

So I turned to the internet and it seemed like I found my answer. Here was the solution for my problem.

1. Turn off printer
2. Hold down Resume button and press Power button.
3. Keep holding down Power button and let Resume button go.
4. Press Resume button 2 times then let BOTH buttons go.
5. Green lights will flash and then stop blinking.
6. When green lights are solid, press the Resume button 4 times.
7. Press the Power button and the printer should turn off, if not, press the Power button once more.
8. Your printer should respond as normal.

I faithfully followed steps 1-5, and waited for the solid green light. Green light. Orange blink. blink. blink. blink. blink. blink. blink. Repeat.

Turn the printer off. Turn printer on. Repeat steps 1-5. Wait for green light. Green light. Orange blink. blink. blink. blink. blink. blink. blink. Repeat.

A little more googling reveals the following gem of info - because I left my printer unplugged for so long, there has been some sort of memory error and now the laptop can no longer see the printhead.

The cost of replacing the printhead? $50. Cost of printer four years ago? $99.

In the interest of being environmentally correct, I consider replacing the printhead. Further research reveals that this may not resolve the problem, and there seems to be plenty of anecdotal evidence that replacing the printhead will not resolve the problem and Canon is not interested in supporting printhead replacement issues.

The only surefire solution seemed to be the following: (this is an actual post)
- Take out the cartridges
- Unplug the power and usb
- Take your printer to the 2nd floor
- Open a window
- Take your printer, curse a few times, and then throw it out of the window...
- Buy anything other than an S series Canon printer because they suck

It's a good thing I saved all that money on my electric bill - because now I need it to buy a new printer.

Special thanks to February, who saved the day and let me come over to her place and print the enormous document.

As for the printer, although I'm sure the above stated solution will work, I will find a greener way of disposing of said piece of crap Canon S300 printer.