HP Original Cartridges

Reliable Remanufactured Cartridges

One of the merits of the P4014 against a new printer is the low cost of good re-manufactured cartridges.

Error Message 53 for HP P4014, P4015 & P4515 Printers.

53.00 & 53.01 etc. Memory Error, in firmware, onboard RAM or expansion DIMM.

53.XY.ZZ ERROR

53.XY.ZZ CHECK RAM DIMM SLOT - A memory doesn't work. The formatter has some Flash- ROM, a couple of RAM chips and a DIMM slot.

• X is the type 0=ROM 1= RAM.
• Y is memory location 0=Internal 1=DIMM slot.
• ZZ is one of
  • 00=Unsupported Memory
  • 01=Unrecognised Memory
  • 02=Unsupported Memory Size
  • 03=Failed RAM Test
  • 04=Exceeded Maximum RAM Size
  • 05=Invalid DIMM Speed

Turn the power off and either remove or reseat any DIMM. We would recommend removing the DIMM at first, just to check what happens.

Remember that if you remove the DIMM on a permanent basis the computer drivers need to be informed, if they are set to expect more RAM than is present there are likely to be errors in the "20" series.

The service manual doesn't actually list the "ZZ" bit of the message but does give the message form that suggests it exists.

Remedies

Memory isn't repairable, but it doesn't fail all that much. If a memory does seem to have failed reseating it usually works.

Obviously there is nothing to be done with the Flash and RAM built onto the formatter - that is going to require a replacement. Reflowing the solder on memory pins might work but doing it with a soldering iron requires a steady hand. Pick and place machines can do it but nobody is going to stop a factory production line to fix one board. There are reflow machines (Cooper tools make them) but they cost thousands are generally used in manufacturers triage centres. Some formatter boards for other models have been successfully recovered by giving them 8 minutes in an oven at 180 centigrade then cooling down without vibration. HP clearly do not recommend this, and we haven't tried it with a P4014 board - it might damage plastics and capacitors so remove anything that looks delicate. However we have a customer who successfully did it with a DesignJet formatter. Put it this way, a dead formatter is no good to anyone; lightly cooking it may work.

Removable memory can be tested using memtest86 (on many Knoppix distributions) if you can find a notebook computer with the right socket.

Web Research

I tried querying Google with P4015 "53 ERROR" in quotes and got a suggestion of About 62 results which was a bit disappointing. So I tried P4015 "53.XY Error" but that threw away the quotes giving About 35,900 results which superficially looked OK but weren't all on target. P4015 "53.XY.ZZ" which is what it says in the manual gave About 667 results which seemed of interest. Google's results listings are very sensitive to what precisely is asked. No actual printer user would be likely to type this of course, but my interest here is whether anyone had penetrated the meaning of the codes more deeply than the service manual does - particularly that "ZZ" suffix .

My search did find printertechs and mj-printers showing a list of subcodes. I didn't feel totally confident that they applied to the P4014. So this needs a bit more research.

Copyright G & J Huskinson & MindMachine Associates Ltd 2013, 2015. Some pictures derived from HP User and Service guides. These technical pages do not constitute an offer for sale; just our knowledge at the time of writing. See the catalogue. Sales pages on this Web site use cookies to store user information. We also use Google Analytics to track site usage patterns.