Three Dell engineers visited campus Tuesday to resolve the jamming problems that have plagued Dartmouth's new GreenPrint printers since they were installed this summer. The Dell 5310n printers were selected as a potential solution to problems with GreenPrint's older Xerox printers, Elijah Gagne, Windows system manager for Technical Services, said. Though Technical Services received positive feedback initially, problems have started to occur as the printers are used more frequently this term.
The Dell representatives, members of a Boston-based design team for the Dell 5310n printers, reset the printers' paper alignment and provided the College's Technical Services with new firmware, Gagne said.
With the newly installed firmware, certain types of PDF files that had previously jammed a station's entire queue are now printable, and individual stations are running more smoothly, Gagne said. In the past, the problematic PDF files would block all documents sent to GreenPrint, and the user's account would be charged for the unprinted pages, Gagne explained.
The Dell engineers also adjusted the paper-feed setup in the new printers to prevent physical paper jams. The paper guides are now locked in place to accommodate the specific paper size used by GreenPrint and the paper should no longer curve off to one side as it is fed through the machine, according to Gagne. The paper jams had occurred in the back section of the printer, making the problem difficult to fix.
"They are something that we are well aware of and have been working on," Gagne said. "We think we have a good fix."
Though many individual jams have occurred over the last few weeks, the GreenPrint system itself has not experienced major problems like it has in the past, according to Gagne.
"I would say that for the past six months, if not more, the system has been very stable," Gagne said.
Students interviewed by The Dartmouth expressed mixed opinions about GreenPrint's reliability -- students using the printers in Carson said they had not had problems, but many claimed the GreenPrint in the Collis Center rarely worked.
The Collis GreenPrint station should be fixed sometime Friday, Gagne said in an e-mail message to the Dartmouth. The changes are ongoing, Gagne added, and some adjustments are still needed for individual printers.
There are currently six Dell 5310n GreenPrint stations at the College -- two in Collis, one on the first floor of Baker-Berry Library and three in Carson. Technical Services is now in the process of evaluating a larger switch from Xerox to Dell. The Xerox printers jammed frequently after start-up because they did not have sufficient time to warm up.
Instead of the Dell 5310n evaluation model that was causing the jams, a slightly newer Dell 5330n model will be installed, according to Gagne. The 5330n printers are expected to arrive next week.
"Based on the support we got from the Dell engineers yesterday we think it's worth giving them a second chance," Gagne said in an e-mail message to The Dartmouth.
