My Optra is out of service so I can't pull the paperfeed bin out and look at
it now.  Some where on the paperfeed bin drawer itself there is a plastic
arm that acts as a low tech sensor that tells the printer the paper size and
capacity.  Its really low tech, just a spring I think to move it.  If it is
in the wrong position, the printer can either jam, or just sit and display
'change paper'.  I could move it to the proper paper size position, with my
fingers, and replace the drawer, after mine broke.

The other thing that caused a lot of jams is that the Optra does not have a
straight print path for the paper to move through it.  While this is not
unusual or undesirable normally (except it curls envelopes) it can hide
little paper fragments that have torn off of a page. These can cause
obstructions in the paper path, and every page that contacts the obstruction
jams.  They are hard to find and remove.

There are also some peculiar install notes for the Optra.  There is a file
on the MS windows98 cd under the drivers folder pertaining to certain Optra
models.  For my Optra R+, I needed to copy a .dll file from this folder to
my pc.  You should make sure your driver is using the RAW setting for the
spooler.  Right-click on your printer's icon, properties, details, and
spooler to see.  If you have the Optra setup panel on the printer set for
advanced printer communication options, (bi-directional, blah blah blah) you
need to use the IEEE printer cable (IEEE-1284? I can't recall the standard
reference number) otherwise the printer will not print correctly.  If you
don't want the speed boost, set the printer for standard parallel operation
and use a standard (cheap) cable.

Tom Turak

-----Original Message-----
From: Angela Bretz [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2003 12:53 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [PCBUILD] Printer Hardware Problems


I just bought a used Lexmark Optra E+ /w new printer cartridge. I installed
the driver in win98, just fine but when I go to print the test page the
printer will not pull the paper straight in and I get a paper jam every
time. I've taken the bottom plate of and cleaned the roller what guides the
paper in, with no results. The printer works fine when I put in an envelope
it guides the envelope straight through. But it still doesn't print
anything. I don't know what else to do.Please help!

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