Xerox Workcentre 7830 Fax Problems

[rockdude]

I have a customer with intermittent fax problems on outgoing faxes.

The faxes fail at all different times i.e. local number as well as long distance, One pages faxes as well as multipage faxes.

The are using a VOIP line. I believe the 7830 is T.38 compliant so this shouldn't be a problem?

Any help on settings or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance

[Exok]

Re: Xerox Workcentre 7830 Fax Problems

Xerox does not guarantee proper operation of their fax cards over VoIP. These cards are designed to work on analog phone lines. First, make sure the customer has all voice functions on the line turned off such as "call waiting". Next, you want to ensure the phone line voltages are within spec. The fax card only uses 2 wires of the phone line to operate, TIP & RING. Using a digital multimeter, test the voltage across tip & ring. It should be -50VDC. Next test the voltage between TIP and machine ground. Should be <1VAC. Test between RING and machine ground. Should be <1VAC. Next test the loop current between TIP & RING, should be 15 to 95mA DC. Next test the ring signal between TIP & RING, should be 50 to 90VAC when the line is ringing. Don't forget to check the line for noise. Using a standard telephone, plug in to the wall jack that the fax uses and it any button once (like #1). You should hear nothing. If you hear any hiss, pops, crackle, anything at all this is "noise on the line" and has to be fixed by the phone line provider. If any of these voltages are incorrect, the problem has to be corrected by the customer's phone line provider.

If all these voltages are correct, the problem can still be due to it being a VoIP line. You can get better results if you lower the initial baud rate that the fax operates at. The default is Super G3. You can drop that down to G3 or the next lower option. This can be changed in both NVM settings and Admin tools.

One thing I don't care for on the xerox fax cards is that it won't give you a reason that the fax failed. It can be as simple as a busy signal or a wrong # (no fax on the other side) or the receiving fax drops the call. Anything and everything that results in the fax not going through kicks out a failure report.

I had a customer that complained that the fax wasn't working and had a stack of failed reports for me when I arrived. I took the stack and dialed every # on those reports and found that 9 out of 10 failed #s were the wrong # (no fax on the other end). I even had 1 user that kept dialing a 9 (to get an outside line) before every fax #. (their line does not require you dial anything for an outside line). Make sure to inspect the failed reports to make sure they are really sending to a fax.

[rockdude]

Re: Xerox Workcentre 7830 Fax Problems

Thank you for your info I will check it out. Thanks again.