Craigwd_2000 Author

Level 4

1,315 points

Personal LaserWriter NTR

I was just recently given an old Apple Personal LaserWriter NTR. I tried connecting it to my Performa 200 running Mac OS 7.5.5 with 10 MB of RAM. Out of the ten times I tried once I got a message stating "scanner motor malfunction." It never printed once while connected to that Mac. I then hooked it up to my Power Mac 5260/100 running Mac OS 8.6 which was able to print to it. When I attempted to enable download unlimited fonts I again got a error message regarding the scanner motor. I then ordered a kit from fixyourownprinter.com to replace the scanner motor. I then attempted to power the printer on & it turned on but all of the lights were off. According to the manual I got with it this indicates that the control board/density controller board isn't getting power. I have tried both fixyourownprinter.com & eBay. Neither have the replacement part I need. I would buy a Personal LaserWriter NT density control board but then I won't have a parallel port connector (I have PCs too). What else should I try to attempt to fix this printer?

refurbished 17 iMac G5 1.8 GHz & refurbished 12 PowerBook G4 1.5 GHz, Mac OS X (10.4.8), 512 & 768 MBs of RAM

Posted on Dec 26, 2006 2:58 PM

27 replies

Mar 2, 2007 12:19 PM in response to Craigwd_2000

Drive Setup's "Zero all Data" goes through the same process in identifying defective sectors, but it seems to do only one level of substitution at a time. It is simple for unsophisticated users to use, but has its limits.

Third-party utilities can be more powerful, but you sometimes need to know more about disk organization or make decisions based on criteria many users do not understand. Mapping out entire bad sections is a great idea, but the Apple utilities choose not to offer it as a feature.

Craigwd_2000 Author

Level 4

1,315 points

Mar 7, 2007 10:17 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Do any third party Mac formatting utilities offer mapping out bad sections as an option? I have Silver Lining on a CD-ROM that came with a external FireWire hard drive & could use it for formatting. I just recently found out that while the utility on the UltimateBootCD found bad sectors it failed to add them to the drive's internal blacklist as initialization failed a third time too (I think it was a trial version though). I'm going to run Norton Disk Doctor on it today using the same Dell PC as my Guinea Pig PC. Should I format the drive as FAT32 to help NDD find the bad sectors more easily? Or is that unnecessary?

Mar 8, 2007 10:44 AM in response to Craigwd_2000

Norton Disk Doctor has fallen out of favor in the Macintosh community by being very slow to update the software when changes in the Mac files system require it, and not alerting loyal customers to the catastrophic damage that can result from fixing things that are not broken, but out-of-date Norton Utilities finds as problems.

Norton Disk Doctor's Bad Blocks scan is quite capable -- it can force the drive to add bad blocks to the drive's bad list and force it to substitute hardware spares. It can also impose a second level of software-controlled bad blocks, but this list is removed by reformatting.

Norton Utilities has many file recovery features. If it finds bad blocks on a Volume with lots of files, it will attempt to re-read the bad data thousands of times in hopes of reading it correctly, so that the data can be recovered and written into the substitute block. This process takes a very long time.

Scanning for bad blocks is completely independent of the file format chosen for the Volume. If you know there are bad blocks, the fewer actual files on the drive when you scan for bad blocks, the less time will be spent trying to recover lost data in those bad blocks.

For the PC, a program called Spinrite comes to mind as one that may be able to scan for bad blocks.

FWB Tools for the Mac can do that and more testing, but they are out of business.

Craigwd_2000 Author

Level 4

1,315 points

Apr 1, 2007 9:05 AM in response to Craigwd_2000

I just tried printing a test page from a Compaq Deskpro 6000/6200 hooked up to the Personal Laserwriter NTR via its Centronics connector. The computer is a Pentium Pro 200 MHz based PC with all eight of the RAM slots maxed out to 256 MB of RAM. It's currently running Windows 2000 Service Pack 4. I was able to add the printer to the Printers folder but the printer refuses to print a Test Page. I get an error message from Windows 2000 stating "device not connected" at the end of the dialog box text. What does this error mean & how should I attempt to troubleshoot the printer further?

Craigwd_2000 Author

Level 4

1,315 points

May 20, 2007 2:45 PM in response to Craigwd_2000

Update: I posted a topic on fixyourownprinter.com. Moe told that me the IO Board/Logic Board or Formatter Board in my Personal LaserWriter NTR needs to be replaced. Where can I buy this component for a reasonable price? I would prefer to buy it locally but online would be OK too as long as shipping is reasonable.

Craigwd_2000 Author

Level 4

1,315 points

Jul 24, 2007 5:58 PM in response to Craigwd_2000

Update: I finally gave in & bought a replacement IO Board from fixyourownprinter.com. The Personal LaserWriter NTR now works great. It even printed a configuration page for the first time ever after replacing the IO Board & powering on the printer! It turn out Moe really knows his stuff. I also finally found the printer's toner cleaning brush. In addition I found out that I was using the wrong RAM by Googling it only to realize it was a 4 MB FPM non-parity RAM module designed for a PC.

Craigwd_2000 Author

Level 4

1,315 points

Nov 13, 2007 5:06 PM in response to Craigwd_2000

Update: I think I may have spoken to soon. Shortly after replacing the IO Board I had to replace the old toner catridge. I then tried to print a cleaning page per the instructions in the manual. I tried is pstopdf to convert the cleaning page from PostSript to a PDF. Upon attempting to print it I kept getting errors in the printer monitor for the printer.

I then attempted to open the CLEANPG.PS file in a ShareWare program called MacGhostView. I tried the File menu's Print PostScript command. I still got the error in the print monitor. I went to Adobe's Support site. They suggested doing a Save As to see if the PostScript file was corrupt. I did this in MacGhostView & attempted to open the copy. I then used the File menu's Print PostScript command. I got a Error 57. This translates to a bad RAM module.

I then removed the IO Board & cleaned its contacts & the RAM module's contacts with contact cleaner. I then tried installing all the drivers I mentioned in the Personal LaserWriter NTR Rev 4.0 ROM Upgrade thread. I also installed the Usbtb Open Source drivers. I had the selector switch on the printer set to Switch Position Eight since the driver was designed with a PCL 4 HP LaserJet IIP in mind. Not a PostScript printer. Upon printing the cleaning page from Adobe Reader the printer went insane.

I had to Reset the Printing System to force it to stop printing. Shortly before I had read the Error 57 sometimes indicated the DC Controller Board may be bad. So I ordered a replacement & replaced it. I powered on the printer & the paper jam & paper lights came on. According to a Google search I now need to replace the printer's power supply. With any luck this should be the last component I need to replace besides the outdated ROMs. Through research I figured out the printer uses the same DC Controller Board as a HP LaserJet IIP.

tmbrowng

Level 1

93 points

Feb 5, 2007 9:37 AM in response to Appaloosa mac man

Thanks, Jim!

Feb 5, 2007 9:22 PM in response to Craigwd_2000

Craig,

Email me. Schools are giving 52xx machines away on a weekly basis.

Jim

Craigwd_2000 Author

Level 4

1,315 points

May 21, 2007 4:02 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

There is no kit that includes a IO Board/Logic Board for a Personal LaserWriter NTR. I was just wondering how much to expect to pay for it. Should I buy it from Moe? Or elsewhere?

Craigwd_2000 Author

Level 4

1,315 points

Jun 4, 2007 5:29 PM in response to Craigwd_2000

Update: I have removed the IO Board from the printer & I found a bulging capacitor rated at 1000 uF 10 Volts. What are the odds that replacing this capacitor will revive my IO Board?

Craigwd_2000 Author

Level 4

1,315 points

Jul 24, 2007 5:47 PM in response to Craigwd_2000

Update: I finally gave in & bought a replacement IO Board from fixyourownprinter.com. The Personal LaserWriter NTR now works great & printer a configuration page for the first time ever!

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Personal LaserWriter NTR