Fiery locking up

[cadkins]

Looks like this is the right place to ask a question about a Fiery so here it goes.

I have a Ricoh MPC3500 with a Fiery. Both the copier and the Fiery are up to date on patches and firmware.

Every once in a while the fiery will lock up. Hit the Fiery button and it states "Idle" but the data light is blinking like it is accepting a print job. Command Workstation shows the jobs backed up and states "Waiting". There isn't one particular job that is locking it up it doesn't seem or a job coming from one particular program. It's just random documents from random programs ( All Mac's ).

There was someone that was printing from Windows XP from Visio that we thought was locking it up but we removed the driver and it still locks up.

We did replace the hard drives in the fiery and reinstall the System Software along with all the patches. It lasted for about a week and started locking up again.

The customer called a few minutes ago and said that rebooting the copier only (not touching the Fiery) got the printing working again.

What suggestions do you have? I would hate to dump a bunch of money into this machine like we already have and it not fix the problem as those Fiery cables are pretty expensive!

Thanks in advance!

[KenB]

That would be the Fiery E5000, or less likely, the E3000.

I've already needed to replace the video card in the Fiery to remedy this problem, twice.

Not fun...

[D_L_P]

That's definitely a tough one. It could be hardware (motherboard, power supply, cables) or software (all Mac's?).

When you say it lasted about a week after replacing the hard drives and reinstalled software, was that an improvement? Was it doing that about once a week or everyday?

I've had a similar experiences with only 2 Fierys. The one locked up with mail merges or large files and setting the printed queue from 10 to 1 fixed that one.

The other has EFI balance for 2 IR150's and would lock up randomly, or just run slow. What was happening with that one was the Fiery was very sloppy and left all these temp files with every job. After a while it this folder would just have a ton of tmp files and eat up all the memory and HDD space. So once a week they went in this folder and sorted the files by date and deleted all the old ones.

Just as a troubleshooting method can you hook up a spare monitor, mouse and keyboard? Might be able to tell if it is the actual computer itself or just the Fiery print services running on it. If it locks up and the cursor can't even move I'd try replacing motherboard or PSU. If they can maneuver around at least you can eliminate those 2 things.

[RRodgers]

That's definitely a tough one. It could be hardware (motherboard, power supply, cables) or software (all Mac's?).

When you say it lasted about a week after replacing the hard drives and reinstalled software, was that an improvement? Was it doing that about once a week or everyday?

I've had a similar experiences with only 2 Fierys. The one locked up with mail merges or large files and setting the printed queue from 10 to 1 fixed that one.

The other has EFI balance for 2 IR150's and would lock up randomly, or just run slow. What was happening with that one was the Fiery was very sloppy and left all these temp files with every job. After a while it this folder would just have a ton of tmp files and eat up all the memory and HDD space. So once a week they went in this folder and sorted the files by date and deleted all the old ones.

Just as a troubleshooting method can you hook up a spare monitor, mouse and keyboard? Might be able to tell if it is the actual computer itself or just the Fiery print services running on it. If it locks up and the cursor can't even move I'd try replacing motherboard or PSU. If they can maneuver around at least you can eliminate those 2 things.

Eeven though you have mostly Mac's are you using Appletalk to print? If not, I'd kill the appletalk service on the Fiery. Its been know to lock up Fiery's.

[KenB]

That's definitely a tough one. It could be hardware (motherboard, power supply, cables) or software (all Mac's?).

When you say it lasted about a week after replacing the hard drives and reinstalled software, was that an improvement? Was it doing that about once a week or everyday?

I've had a similar experiences with only 2 Fierys. The one locked up with mail merges or large files and setting the printed queue from 10 to 1 fixed that one.

The other has EFI balance for 2 IR150's and would lock up randomly, or just run slow. What was happening with that one was the Fiery was very sloppy and left all these temp files with every job. After a while it this folder would just have a ton of tmp files and eat up all the memory and HDD space. So once a week they went in this folder and sorted the files by date and deleted all the old ones.

Just as a troubleshooting method can you hook up a spare monitor, mouse and keyboard? Might be able to tell if it is the actual computer itself or just the Fiery print services running on it. If it locks up and the cursor can't even move I'd try replacing motherboard or PSU. If they can maneuver around at least you can eliminate those 2 things.

Unfortunately, connecting a monitor to this RIP won't do much (OK, any) good.

Since it's Linux based, all you will see is the BIOS messages until the OS starts - then nothing after that.

There is no such thing as a FACI kit or the like for Linux based Fieries.

[cadkins]

Thanks for the info and quick replies.

Eeven though you have mostly Mac's are you using Appletalk to print? If not, I'd kill the appletalk service on the Fiery. Its been know to lock up Fiery's.

They are using Appletalk because from my experience using IP printing was really slow.

Since the Fiery is Linux based, does it just drop you to command line? If I can log into it, I can get around in it and see if I can find a hardware log to see if it recorded any errors.

I've already needed to replace the video card in the Fiery to remedy this problem, twice.

When you say "Video Card" what video card are you referring to? The card in the Fiery that connects to the SCSI cable?

[D_L_P]

KenB is correct, the monitor and keyboard will be useless. I assumed it was the XPe OS. After the bios screen just disables the monitor or doesn't have display driver for linux. You might have more luck getting in remotely from telnet.

And I've heard that card the SCSI cable plugs into called the "video" card too, sounds like a good possibility.

[KenB]

The "video" card is the card with the SCSI-type connector that goes to the copier. (I doubt that it's a true SCSI.); it plugs directly into the motherboard.

At one time I had the genius idea of putting it in a different slot to troubleshoot, but with the way the RIP is physically arranged, you can't.

BTW... With a monitor connected, you never even get to a command line, just a "loading Linux" message. Again, 99+% useless.

Never did try telnet though - that's a good idea. I will say, though, that if the copier and RIP aren't talking, the RIP never boots all the way. No idea on how far it actually gets, but I can say that Command Workstation will never connect.

It's a shame, really. The MPC3500 / 4500 is a rockin' box, and EFI makes killer RIPs. Unfortunately, these "baby" RIPs leave A LOT to be desired.