CHANGING SERIAL NUMBER & PAGE COUNT ON HP

PRINTERS
The following steps will allow you to change the Formatter Number, Serial Number, and
Page Count on a printer (e.g. LJ2100, LJ2200, and LJ4000) after the Formatter Board is
replaced.

Note: Square brackets indicate keys that need to be pressed. Round brackets indicate
explanatory notes. Some of the following commands begin with an escape character (shown
as [ESC]).
In MS-DOS Edit, this character is entered by
• Holding down Ctrl and pressing P
• Releasing both
• Pressing [Esc]
• A left pointing arrow will appear, indicating the escape character

Connect LPT1 of a PC to the printer

Go into DOS
• MS-DOS Prompt under Programs in Windows 95/98
• Command Prompt under Accessories in Windows 2000

Enter EDIT HPSET [Enter] (or whatever name you want to use)
Using MS-DOS Edit, enter the following commands as required (Note – they are case
specific.)

[ESC]%-12345X@PJL Enter (start PJL job)

@PJL SET SERVICEMODE=HPBOISEID [Enter] (enter service mode)
@PJL SET PAGES=NNN [Enter] (where NNN is the page count)
@PJL SET SERIALNUMBER=XXX [Enter] (where XXX is the chassis Serial Number)
@PJL SET FORMATTERNUMBER=XXX [Enter] (where XXX is the Formatter Number)
@PJL SET SERVICEMODE=EXIT [Enter] (exit service mode)
DEFAULT PAPER= A4 [Enter] (if you want to set the default paper size)
@PJL RESET [Enter] (perform PJL reset)
%-12345 [Enter] (exit PJL mode)
E [Enter] (reset the printer)

Hold down [Alt] and press [F] (to select the File menu)
Press [P] (for Print)
Press [Tab] (for OK)
Press [Enter] (to send the file to the printer)

A page will feed. If you have entered an invalid command, it will be printed on the page.
If the page is blank, print a Configuration Page to confirm the changes.
18.5. Accessing Printer Hardware Pagecounters
The following is from Hewlett-Packard
documentation, http://www.hp.com/cposupport/printers/support_doc/bpl02119.html

All HP LaserJet 4/5/6 family printers have a page count feature built into the firmware.
However, this feature works differently depending on which HP LaserJet printer is being
used. The following is a description of how the page count feature works for each printer
within the HP LaserJet 4/5/6 printer families.

HP LaserJet 4/4M printers

HP LaserJet 4 Plus/4M Plus printers
HP LaserJet 4P/4MP printers
HP LaserJet 4Si/4Si MX printers
HP LaserJet 4ML printers
HP LaserJet 5P/5MP printers
HP LaserJet 6P/6MP printers

All of the above printers use the same method for keeping track of the number of copies.
There are really two different page count values: Primary and Secondary values. Every time
a page is printed, whether it is an internal job (such as a self-test) or a standard print job,
the Secondary page count increases by one. This value is stored in standard RAM. Once the
Secondary page count value reaches 10, the Primary page count will increase by 10. The
Primary page count value is stored in a type of memory called NVRAM (Non-Volatile RAM).
This is important, since NVRAM is not cleared when the printer is powered off. Standard
RAM, on the other hand, is cleared when the printer is turned off or reset. Thus, the Primary
page count only increases in increments of 10.

Example

You have a brand new HP LaserJet 6P printer and you print a self-test page. When you look
on the test page for the Page Count value, you will see that it says 1. Next, you decide to
print a two page letter and, after that, another self-test. The page count value now says 4.
Internally, the printers Secondary page count (stored in RAM) has the value of 4 while the
Primary page count (stored in NVRAM) still has the value of 0. Now, you turn the printer off,
then back on, and print another self-test. The page count value again says 1 since the
previous value of 4, stored in RAM, was cleared when the printer was powered off. Finally,
print a ten page document and then turn the printer off. Upon turning the printer back on
and printing out another self test, you see that the page count value is 11. Internally, the
Secondary page count value is back at 1 while the Primary page count value (stored in
NVRAM) is 10. Added together, you end up with the resulting value seen on the self-test
page.

The HP LaserJet 4L/5L/6L printers differ from that of the other printers in that they do not have
any NVRAM available for storing page count values. Thus, no way exists for the printer to retain
a page count value once the printer is powered off. The HP LaserJet 4L/5L/6L printers have only
a single page count value that increases in increments of one until the printer is powered off.