Important instructions for correcting the black streak problem on the black and white printer

The black and white printer is a Dell M5200n laserprinter. It is available for the use of all IBG faculty, students, employees, and guests.

In brief:

• Download the drivers.
• Extract the drivers.
• Point your computer to the printer using either the Windows domain member or the HTTP/CUPS method.

This is the easiest method for attaching to the IBG printers. It is recommended for all desktop Windows computers. However, this only works if the computer being used is a member of the IBG Windows domain. Your computer is a member of the IBG Windows domain if the following are true:

• Your computer is on-campus.
• You press ctrl-alt-delete and see a login box similar to (it will look different on Vista):

If your computer is not a member of the IBG Windows domain then follow the instructions under HTTP/CUPS.

• Open a Windows Explorer (not Internet Explorer) window. This can be done by opening My Computer.
• Enter \\delta\printers and faxes into the address bar.
• Right click on the M5200n-PS3 icon and select Connect and then Yes

Drivers for the printer are available from Dell and can be downloaded directly at http://ftp.us.dell.com/printer/R147093.exe.

Drivers are only available for Windows 2000, XP, and Vista (32 bit). The printer uses Postscript, so Mac and Windows Vista64 users can select the generic postscript driver.

Double click on the R147093.exe file which was downloaded. That will by default extract the drivers to c:\Dell\Printers. Once the drivers are extracted, move on to the HTTP/CUPS section.

Sometimes the black and white printer creates pages with black streaks on them. This problem goes away when the print driver is set to use 1200 dpi. To do this under Windows:

• Go to the Printers and Faxes control panel.
• Right click on the M5200n printer. It might be named M5200n-PS3, M5200n-PCL, or something like lp on delta.
• Click Printing Preferences.
• Select the Graphics tab if it exists.
  • Set the Resolution selector to 1200 dpi.
  • Click OK.
• Select the Advanced button if there is no Graphics tab.
  • Set the Print quality selector to 1200 x 1200 dots per inch
  • Click OK.
  • Click OK again.
• If there are multiple connections to the M5200 (such as both M5200n-PS3 and M5200n-PCL) follow these steps for all of them.