When you turn off your inkjet printer, your PC also has to send data downstream to the printer which means that it’s not just a one-way street. That’s because of all the fancy features HP printer have, such as scanning and copying capabilities, a “smart” OS that can show you status updates on its LCD display panel, and even built-in wireless connectivity — features that are way beyond what most office printers offer.
The printer’s PC-to-printer data transmission is governed by a special chip called a Universal Serial Bus (USB) Hub. It’s designed to allow only 1 USB device (your PC) to play havoc in your printer’s hub.
Since the printer cannot control its own behavior on its own, it relies on the PC to tell it what to do. Here are the things that happen to slow printing down when you turn off an inkjet printer:
Your security software may take a while to sign off, and the time required varies from one security suite to another. Your anti-malware software may need to perform some scanning first.
Your utility software (e.g., hard disk defragmenter) may need a little while to finish its house cleaning chores.
Even if you do not use your printer for a long time, data go stale in the print head, and the print head must cool down before it can be used again. You don’t have any choice about this part of the process even if you turn off the power manually by unplugging the printer’s power cord from its wall outlet.
If you have an HP printer, the print head will cool down automatically after a while. You can see this by looking at the printer’s power LED on its side: If it lights up red, then the head is not ready to go; or if it lights up green, then it’s ready and you don’t have to move a muscle.
Turning off an HP printer quickly will also prevent overheating at this stage. Sometimes, even when there hasn’t been any paper loading or no printing for about 15 minutes, the print head gets really hot and shuts down.
Does HP printer turn off automatically?
If you have a HP printer, you might notice that it mysteriously turns off at seemingly arbitrary intervals. You may not realize that the printer or the computer automatically puts the printer to sleep after a certain period of time. There are various methods for waking up your printer and getting it to work again. Here are some simple fixes that you can use to prevent the problem from happening again.
Here are the simple solutions for HP printer turn off problem:
Get an Ethernet cable and connect your printer to a port on your computer. This may be a different port than the one that it usually uses, depending on how many ports you have in your computer. If you have one network port, then this works just fine – but if your computer has two network ports, then you will probably need another cable for a second printer.
Update the printer software. If the printer software is outdated, then it might not work properly and you will have problems with the printer. Open the Printer Properties window and go to ‘Update and select Download and Install’. You may want to update your printer software through a USB interface rather than through a network port.
Make sure that you are not trying to print something that is big or complex on your computer (such as a document with an image). For example, if your computer is connected to the internet, you might try printing an email or something that only has basic text.
Print a test page from the printer:
Make sure that all of the cables are connected to the computer and to the printer itself.
Open your Printer Properties window and select Printing Preferences – go to Advanced tab – select Sleep Timer and uncheck “turn off after ” setting (this option is disabled by default) or pick a small value as sleep timer, like 1 minute or 3 minutes;
Unload any paper in your printer – sometimes this can interrupt a print job, causing the printer problem you are experiencing.
Do you have multiple printers in your computer? Try moving this one while leaving others connected, so that any resources used by other printers don’t affect this one.
What do I do if my HP printer won't turn off?
If you have a HP printer and it has stopped working, what do you do? You can pull the power cord, but if that doesn’t work, you might need to find a local support. No matter what method you choose or how long it takes to fix your HP printer, be sure to ask for help from a friend or family member if they know more about fixing printers than you. Some other troubleshooting steps include:
Unplugging anything near the printer (modem, computer).
Turning off the power at its source and then plugging back in.
Holding down the power button for 5 seconds or more until it shuts off before trying anything else with your computer/printer.
Turning off the printer and then turning it back off.
Printing something or opening a document to get printer working correctly again.
Resetting your printer.
Checking if you have paper in the tray before starting your computer.
Checking if other devices are connected to your printer (if not, try unplugging).
If you have a wireless HP Printer, check that it is connected to the network and check that it has power. If you don’t find anything wrong, seek help from someone who knows how to fix printers. Then let them know what happened so they can give you more support later when trouble shooting printer problems on their own.
Before you get to that point, however, you should make sure you have the correct power supply cord for your printer and if it’s plugged in.
Step 1: Make sure your printer is on and ready.
Step 2: Make sure the power cord is in the outlet and that it’s secure. Then check to see if the problem still happens. If not, then your problem has been solved. If so, then you might need to plug in a different power cord or computer/printer might be unplugged (most likely).
Plug in a different printer or try using a different outlet and check if anything changes.
Step 3: Press the power button on your printer. If it’s still off, then your problem has been solved. If not, then the problem has now been transferred to Step 4.
Step 4: Try unplugging the power cord from one of the outlets and plugging it back in to see if anything changes and if so, then you know that you have a loose connection or that you have a bad outlet. If nothing has changed (you still have the same problem), then there is more work to do in this step, which is known as troubleshooting printers by using other steps depending on whether or not your printer can be fixed without going through this step first.