Someone try to breakin says my wife!

R

Rod Bishop

Member
For several months, at least once a week, my wife in the middle of the night hears someone rattling the front door trying to break-in. We grab our guns and run to the front door, but the door is locked, the alarm didn't go off and the front porch motion sensor didn't make a sound.
She calls me crazy for not hearing it, but last night we caught the intruder.

She slept on the couch last night and at about midnight she wakes me up about the intruder again, but no one is there. She goes back to sleep on the couch, but sleeps with one eye open, and hears the noise again.

The intruder noise is coming from the HP printer connected to her computer. She told me this after I woke up about 7am. The printer is plugged into power but is turned off at the switch. There is a little green lite on the printer power cord at the back of the printer but not on the printer. Her PC is turned off at night so the PC is not commanding anythig.

My question is, why would a HP printer, about 8 years old make any noise while turned off. She says the printhead goes back and forth a few times and stops after midnight.

For all you ghost hunters, the printer does not print a page or spit out a paper with supernatural letters.
 
When you say turned off at the switch, do you mean a power strip? If an inkjet printer is plugged into power, it will move from time to time to clean or adjust the ink heads, this happened randomly back when I had one as well. Sounds like a bad power strip, because if it's off that can't happen unless it also has batteries like some portable printers do.
 
The printers off and on switch is turned off, but the printers power cable is live and plugged into the back of the printer. There is a green lite on the printers power cable, not the printer itself just to let you know the cable is live, but the printer is off.
The printhead still comes on almost every night and moves back and forth a few times, with the printers power switch in the off position.

If it's resetting or cleaning itself how does it do it with the switch off?
 
What is the model of HP printer? Some printers will do an automatic head cleaning once a day.
 
Rod Bishop said:
There is a green lite on the printers power cable, not the printer itself just to let you know the cable is live, but the printer is off.
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That means the printer is still receiving power. The printer may be off but there is still power going to it.
 
So your saying even though I turned the printer off at the power button, it's still alive and can clean itself and cycle in and out?
 
NOT wireless, usb cable connection and the PC is turned off too.

I just unplugged the power cord to the printer so she can sleep tonight.

I think it's still strange for a printer to clean itself at night after you turn it off. Last night she said it so called cleaned itself twice about 30 minutes apart.
 
Rod Bishop said:
NOT wireless, usb cable connection and the PC is turned off too.

I just unplugged the power cord to the printer so she can sleep tonight.

I think it's still strange for a printer to clean itself at night after you turn it off. Last night she said it so called cleaned itself twice about 30 minutes apart.
Click to expand...
So the solution is unplug or use a power strip and turn it off when you don't need to use it.
 
Invest in some ear plugs for your wife and then have her see a shrink to see what makes her so paranoid that the printer makes her think someone is trying to break in.
 
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