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HP DeskJet 6840 Gripes  Networked inkjet printer

Out of Box Experience

Originally written March 2006 based on experiences using the printer on a Windows 2000 machine. Revised September 2006 to add experiences using the printer on a Windows XP Pro machine. 

The printer can do Ethernet on its own. It can also do TCP/IP on its own (it responds to Pings) as well as HTTP (web site inside the printer) and DHCP. If it gets an IP address dynamically, it will show up in the routers client list. But to share it on a network of Windows computers, you are totally dependent on installing HP software on each computer. The printer does not show up when browsing Network Neighborhood. It has no Windows "shares" of its own even though it registers itself with three different NetBIOS type 00 names. It does not join a workgroup on its own. 

As is so often the case, the printer does not come with a USB cable to connect it to a computer. 

Normally routers have a hard coded IP address making it easy to get into their admin website the first time. After that, the IP addressing can be changed. Works fine. But this printer doesn't work this way. The Ethernet NIC does DHCP by default which makes it that much harder to get to its internal web site the first time around. 

FYI: You must install the HP software before connecting to the printer to the computer. 

Setup Wizard 

It comes with a ton of software, not just a plain old simple driver. 

The first screen of the setup wizard says Welcome and waits for user to click Next button. While waiting it burns 100% of the CPU! And continues too with no end in sight.  A runaway loop while waiting for user input is disgraceful programming.  The running program is hpfpaste.exe and it is running out of a temp directory: C:\Documents and Settings/userid/local settings/temp 

And it's not just the first window, its all the others too. Such as the one asking if you want to do a typical or minimal install. Here too, the HP software burns all CPU while waiting for me to respond to the question. 

For Ethernet access to the printer, it recommends that you "manually obtain an IP address". These words have no meaning when it comes to allocating IP addresses. The correct terminology is static or dynamic. You manually configure a static IP address, while you dynamically obtain one via DHCP. That HP doesn't use industry standard terms is inexcusable. Turns out HP is referring to static IPs here. 

HP Software 

Installing the printer installs a lot of software including services and programs that run automatically at boot time and never shut down. 

Programs: 

• The HPDJ Taskbar Utility runs automatically at startup from C:\windows\system32\spool/drivers\w32x86\3\hpztsb12.exe. This is not essential, I right clicked on the icon in the system tray, shut it down and was still able to print over the network to the Ethernet connection on the printer. 
• HP Software Update runs automatically at startup from:  C:\Program Files\Hewlett-Packard\HP Software Update\HPWuSchd2.exe. Since the printer driver dates back to 2004, HP is probably not going to update it again. I prevented this from running automatically (but did not uninstall it). Turns out it's not necessary, the printer still works over the wired Ethernet connection. 
• HPWebUpdate was set to run once (at next system startup). It did run only once. 

Services 

• The HP Status Server service starts up manually from C:windows\system32\hpboid.exe
• The HP Port Resolver service also starts up manually. The program is: C:\windows\system32\hpbro.exe
• The PML Driver HPZ12 service is also set for a manual startup. 

After booting neither of these services is started. They get started when you print a page, and they continue running until Windows is shut down. 

Program hpzipm12.exe runs when you print something. 

The HP software burrowed itself into the Windows 2000 Print Spooler service. Process Explorer shows that it has a thread called hptcpmon.dll. 

This strikes me as too many system changes. Instead of a network aware printer, a Print Server may be a better way to go as it involves no software on your computer and uses standard Windows networking.
  

Networking 

The printer has no default host name. There is no way to assign a workgroup name to the printer. 

When browsing a Windows network the printer is not visible. This despite its having an IP address. I could ping it by IP address and also by the host name that I gave it. The Add Printer wizard can't see the printer either by IP address or by name. A "new view" command doesn't show the printer. 
 

Port 161 

After installing the printer on my LAN, ZoneAlarm started asking new questions when a Windows 2000 computer booted (the printer was already on at the time the computer started up). Program spoolsv.exe was trying to make an outbound connection to port 161 on the printer. The port is used by the SNMP protocol, which according to Steve Gibson, means the printer is running an SNMP server. The program was   C:\WINNT\System32\spoolsv.exe

The printer is using port 9100 according to: Printer Properties -> Ports tab -> Select the port used by the HP DeskJet 6840 and click on the Configure Ports button. This also shows that SNMP is enabled for the printer.  Needless to say, none of this is documented by HP. Click the image at right to see it full size.  When, on a Windows 2000 machine, I blocked the connection to port 161, I could not print over the network. On an XP Pro machine it uses a "Deskjet6800" port which they describe as an "HP standard TCP/IP port".

Spyware?

When printing over the LAN (with Windows 2000), there is a prompt from the ZoneAlarm firewall that program HPZipm12.exe wants outbound access to a DNS server. The program is running from: C:\winnt\system32\hpzipm12.exe. It wants access to port 53 which is the standard DNS port. It won't print until this program is granted Internet access by the firewall. Interestingly, it is not trying to use my router, which is the DNS server for all the machines on my LAN. It was also not the DNS server of my ISP. More on HPZipm12.  

According to Answers That Work "This task handles non-printing related two-way communications between the PC and the HP printer. Typically, on DeskJet and InkJet printers it will handle status-type communications such as ink levels, paper empty conditions, etc..., and will feed that information back to an HP icon in the System Tray".  

Program HPZipm12 really wants to get at the Internet. To many different IP addresses. So many, in fact, that I wonder if it might be spying on me. Click on the image at the right to see a log of its activity from ZoneAlarm. Some of the IPs were:  208.185.174.44 67.15.226.40 63.236.80.73   te.tacoda.net  69.36.39.150   37signals.com  69.64.185.86  dss1.siteadvisor.com   69.64.185.86

Living With The 6840 

If the color cartridge is empty you can't even print in black/white. Even setting the printer properties to only gray scale does not help. The money is in the cartridges. 

When it prints it shakes. A lot. The printer needs to be a very wide and heavy desk/table. 

The plastic top shows dust. 

It is very hard to push the buttons on the front of the printer.  So hard it leaves an indentation in my finger. They are hard metal buttons. 

The paper tray that pulls out to support 8.5x11 paper is very flimsy and doesn't slide out or back easily. 

Closing the top cover is a pain, as it very often does not close properly. And, if it is not fully closed, the printer won't print. I think if you press on both sides with both hands it works. 

FYI

For WiFi the printer supports wpa-psk 

The internal web site shows ink levels, total pages printed and the serial number. 

You can assign the printer a static IP address and a static DNS address. 

The printer supports mDNS. Whatever that is.