Archive for July, 2021


HP Printer is Very Slow

Here is a problem that affects some HP printers. I can confirm that it affects the OfficeJet 3830 series. It appears that it only affects printers with two ink cartridges. The printer does a sweep, pauses for about 15 seconds, does the next sweep, pauses for about 15 seconds, and so on.

The problem with the printer is that one ink cartridge is bad. You need to remove one and test the printer in single cartridge mode. If the printer is fast again, you found your bad cartridge. If that doesn’t work, remove the other ink cartridge and return the first one. The printer should now be fast. If not, you will need to try again with a fresh cartridge, either color or black. If it still very slow, chances are good the problem is too expensive to fix.

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There is a message you may get when you are restarting or shutting down Windows that is preventing the computer from automatically restarting. It might also prevent the computer from booting too. It will say:

Task Host Window
Task Host is stopping background tasks. (\Microsoft\Windows\Plug and Play\Device Install Reboot Required )

This is the result of some hardware that is either defective or not fully compatible with Windows. You need to isolate which one is the problem. Try the USB devices one at a time first. And if that doesn’t work, try the internal hardware. Once you find isolate the defective or incompatible device, leave it disconnected. If it is a USB device, you may still be able to use it, but you can only connect it when you need too and disconnect when you are done. If you are using Windows 10, the device may be compatible with an earlier version of it.