HP designjet firmware update
I'm hoping someone can help with this. I have an old HP designjet 500 plotter. I had recently replace a print head and on the box it said I needed to upgrade the firmware. I try to install the firmware from the application within the firmware and I get a message box that reads: in order to continue, the printer must be shared. Now when I installed the driver, I made sure sharing was on and and the properties shows that as well. There is no network card so it's connected to my computer via USB. The computer is win 10 and I made sure I loaded a windows 10 x64 driver. Is there another way to force install firmware?
As this is a very old plotter and it was designed to operate with Windows 98, NT and Windows 2000 ... I would locate one of these older systems and do the firmware update there.
I've not had to upgrade an HP plotter in Windows 10 yet so can't really comment on the sharing issue.
DesignJets are however best upgraded over a parallel port connection & as Dr K says using an XP setup would be ideal if you've a machine with an LPT port. You can use the drivers supplied with XP to connect.
Make sure you unplug any GL2 memory cards from the plotter as they can be permanently corrupted during the process.
Although the data transfer from PC to plotter is quick the plotter takes forever to process the upgrade so don't disconnect or power down until you see an success message on the plotter (you'll see a message on the PC almost instantly after running the firmware upgrade saying it was successful but that's only talking about the data tansfer).
You'll need to power cycle the plotter a couple of times once the new firmware is installed.
DesignJets are however best upgraded over a parallel port connection & as Dr K says using an XP setup would be ideal if you've a machine with an LPT port. You can use the drivers supplied with XP to connect.
Make sure you unplug any GL2 memory cards from the plotter as they can be permanently corrupted during the process.
Although the data transfer from PC to plotter is quick the plotter takes forever to process the upgrade so don't disconnect or power down until you see an success message on the plotter (you'll see a message on the PC almost instantly after running the firmware upgrade saying it was successful but that's only talking about the data tansfer).
You'll need to power cycle the plotter a couple of times once the new firmware is installed.
ASKER
Thanks for the help. I will have to track down an old computer with XP. I am trying to connect to the plotter through a USB connection, I will have to try connecting through the LPT port. The USB port worked for printing but maybe updating firmware is different.
You should be able to do the firmware update via USB connection.
However, updating firmware from Windows 10 is not supported.
Instead, you need a computer running Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 and go to the link below to download the firmware update tool.
https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-designjet-500-printer-series/25301
Reference:
https://support.hp.com/hk-en/document/c06098737
However, updating firmware from Windows 10 is not supported.
Instead, you need a computer running Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 and go to the link below to download the firmware update tool.
https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-designjet-500-printer-series/25301
Reference:
https://support.hp.com/hk-en/document/c06098737
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