Printing problem?

[Flashie]

I was called out by my teacher today in class as i'm 'That Tech Guy' (Considering im level 1 and 2 Service Technician at local PC shop); to help her with her printer that wouldnt detect.

 

She had a relatively old Samsung monochrome laser printer which has worked multiple times in the past. 

She had a relatively alright-specced laptop and a working USB Printer cable.

The teacher wanted to print a list from word but the printer kept showing as 'Offline'. What she's tried and I've retried was to unplug and plug back in the USB Printer Cable; Turn the printer off and back on; and to restart the laptop. Same Results.

 

I then went further to reset the 'printer spooler' service which lead to the same result. Printer troubleshooting for the Samsung printer (Also the default printer) did nothing either.

 

Sure its now 10:49pm and its 14 hours since I've had that class - and im assuming the teacher found a workaround by now:

 

But i'd like to still find out - What did i miss? What could the problem have been? 

[minibois]

Have you tried anything to do with software? Reinstalling the drivers or whatever?

Or tried to just make a copy of a paper? (if the printer is a multifunctional)

[Flashie]

1 minute ago, Minibois said:

Have you tried anything to do with software? Reinstalling the drivers or whatever?

Or tried to just make a copy of a paper? (if the printer is a multifunctional)

The printer wasn't a multi function. Was solely for printing. Didnt do anything with software/driver related as i had no access to my normal troubleshooting utilities and didn't think about device manager at the time

 

[minibois]

If the printer had anything like a USB port or SD card reader, you could have tried printing from either of those.

[Doramius]

whether from device manager or Control Panel/Devices and Printers, trashing the printer and re-installing doesn't ever hurt.  Just make sure you download the latest driver for the printer, first.  I've had rare occasions where a windows update borked the printer driver.  I think I've dealt with the issue a handful of times in about 10 years.  

[Flashie]

1 minute ago, Doramius said:

whether from device manager or Control Panel/Devices and Printers, trashing the printer and re-installing doesn't ever hurt.  Just make sure you download the latest driver for the printer, first.  I've had rare occasions where a windows update borked the printer driver.  I think I've dealt with the issue a handful of times in about 10 years.  

The classroom i was in did not have internet access and was basically running a plethora of LAN devices rather. 

The only thing im still uncertain of is how it worked just minutes before it showed as 'offline'

[Doramius]

Best thing to do in those cases is usually reboot and print Windows Test page.  If it's not working, something happened with the driver.  Trash and re-install.  That's pretty extensive troubleshooting for a USB printer.  If it were network, you'd probably have only a few more steps.

[19_blackie_73]

There's that window were you can see the print jobs at least with my printers at home, and in the first pulldown menue is a setting sth called "show as offline" and this might be checked