HP LaserJet P1606dn Not Printing, USB Install Failures, Repeating Jobs, and Network Problems

HP LaserJet P1606dn Not Printing, USB Install Failures, Repeating Jobs, and Network Problems

This page collects HP LaserJet P1606dn cases where the printer stayed partly usable while one important path failed. In some situations, Windows could print a test page but one business application stalled every job at nearly the same point. In others, USB installation failed repeatedly even after cable changes and firmware updates, while the same printer became usable as soon as it was moved onto the network instead. 

That split behavior is what makes the P1606dn difficult to troubleshoot. The printer can still respond, still appear in Windows, or still work through one connection method while failing completely through another. The sections below follow those more specific failures rather than treating the machine like it has one generic driver issue.

Problem: Printer is sending test pages but nothing else prints

What users observed: The P1606dn was reachable on the network and could print a Windows test page both from a workstation and from the terminal server itself. The failure appeared only when printing from one older business application. The printer lights blinked briefly as though the job were about to start, but nothing came out. The print job then sat in the queue at roughly 97.6 KB out of 97.8 KB before eventually throwing an error.

What was tried: The printer itself was not treated as dead because other printing still worked. Attention shifted to the application and the print language it was using. Different driver paths were tested rather than repeating the same standard PCL setup.

How this played out: The job started printing normally only after the printer was switched to the HP Universal Print Driver using PCL 5. PCL 6 and PostScript were not the working path in these reports. The issue stayed tied to application compatibility with the newer driver path, not to basic network connectivity.

Problem: USB installation failing, but the printer works once it was networked

What users observed: The computer repeatedly failed to install the P1606dn over USB. It would begin the install process when the printer was powered on, but the setup would stop halfway through and report that it could not connect to the computer. The same thing happened across different user accounts, and even after firmware was updated from another machine.

What was tried: Users changed the USB cable, updated firmware, and even tested with a similar printer to see whether the computer could recognize that model correctly. The machine still refused to recognize the working P1606dn properly over USB.

How this played out: The printer came back into service only after the USB path was abandoned and the device was used over the network instead. The hardware was still fine. The failure stayed with the USB installation path on that computer.

Problem: The printer was visible in Windows, but the model was missing from the add-printer list

What users observed: Windows detected that a printer was present and even showed HP LaserJet P1606dn in the add-printer process, but when it moved to the manufacturer and model screen, that exact model was not listed. The printer could not be added the normal way because the model entry simply was not there.

What was tried: Users tried the normal HP list first, expecting the exact printer to appear once Windows refreshed the catalog.

How this played out: The printer was added successfully only after selecting Generic as the manufacturer and Generic PCL 5 printer as the model. The issue was not that Windows could not see the printer at all. The issue was that the exact model entry was missing from the local driver list.

Problem: The printer kept printing the same job over and over

What users observed: Instead of printing one copy and stopping, the P1606dn kept printing copy after copy of the same job until the queue was manually opened and the job was deleted. This made the printer look as though it had lost control of its own queue handling.

What was tried: The printer itself was not reset first because the repeated output clearly followed one active job in the Windows print path.

How this played out: The behavior stopped once bidirectional support was unchecked in the printer’s port or properties settings. After that change, the printer handled single jobs normally again instead of continuing to reprint them.

Problem: The printer changed its IP unexpectedly or printed gibberish after reset

What users observed: After reset or factory-default attempts, one P1606dn began behaving unpredictably on the network. At times it changed its IP on its own. At other times it printed lines of gibberish across the page or even began printing with nothing obvious left in the queue.

What was tried: Users looked first for a normal factory reset path and expected the printer to come back on a clean, predictable configuration. They also checked whether the printer would reappear normally on the LAN after reset.

How this played out: A practical recovery path was to disable SNMP in the print-server setup if needed, scan the local subnet to find the printer’s current IP again, and then reconfigure the network settings from the web interface once the device was found. The key detail in these reports was that the printer did not always return cleanly to the expected address after reset, especially where DHCP reservation behavior was already unstable.

Problem: The printer showed a DHCP address, but disappeared from the network anyway

What users observed: The P1606dn stopped responding over the network completely. It would not answer pings, could not be reached in a browser, and did not respond over telnet. At the same time, its own network status report still showed that it had obtained an IP address from DHCP.

What was tried: Users power-cycled the printer, released and renewed the DHCP lease, swapped cables, changed switch ports, and even assigned a static IP manually. None of that restored normal network access.

How this played out: The printer still worked when connected through USB. That shifted the failure away from the print engine and toward the network interface. In practice, the durable workaround was to use it as a USB printer and share it back out, because the printer itself still functioned even though its network path no longer did.

Problem: Duplex printing stopped working even though the settings still looked correct

What users observed: The P1606dn suddenly stopped printing double-sided even though the duplex settings still appeared correct in Windows. There was no obvious paper-path failure, and the issue did not begin with a visible hardware breakdown.

What was tried: Users reviewed the duplex settings and expected the printer to resume normal automatic two-sided output.

How this played out: In the material provided, no confirmed final fix was recorded. The important point is that the duplex path can fail separately from ordinary printing, leaving the printer looking configured correctly while the two-sided function no longer behaves as expected.

Problem: The printer stopped detecting cartridges even after trying other toner units

What users observed: The P1606dn would no longer detect the cartridge. Different cartridges were tried and the printer was reset back to factory settings, but the machine still behaved as though no valid cartridge was present.

What was tried: Users swapped consumables first and performed a factory reset, which ruled out a simple one-cartridge failure.

How this played out: No confirmed resolution was recorded in the material you provided. What matters here is that the problem remained even after cartridge substitution, so the failure had already moved beyond one obviously bad toner unit.

Problem: Very small text looked weak and hard to read

What users observed: The printer still produced output, but very small text — especially around 5-point size — looked weak enough to be hard to read. That made the machine seem disappointing compared to other printers, even though the issue was limited to very fine output quality rather than total failure.

What was tried: Attention shifted to the consumables rather than to the Windows setup. Users questioned whether the included toner was third-party, whether the drum section inside the cartridge was worn, and whether the print path needed a cleaning print.

How this played out: The most realistic fix path was a new toner cartridge and, where available, a cleaning cycle. The problem was treated as worn toner or drum-related print quality degradation rather than a driver problem.

Problem: The printer left extra marks on the page

What users observed: The P1606dn began leaving unwanted marks on printed pages. This did not look like weak text or scaling trouble. It looked like a repeating physical defect in the output itself.

What was tried: Users considered the toner cartridge first, since that is the simplest replaceable cause of repeating marks.

How this played out: Once the toner possibility was ruled out, the defect pointed toward the fuser path. In other words, the printer was still printing, but the image was being damaged as it passed through the fixing stage rather than by the driver or print queue.

Problem: HP LaserJet P1606dn not working on Windows 11

What users observed: Users reported that the HP LaserJet P1606dn appeared in Windows 11 but did not always print correctly. Some saw an offline message even when the printer was powered on. Others found that USB or network setup worked once, then failed again after a restart or Windows update.

What was tried: Users removed duplicate HP printer entries, checked the USB or Ethernet connection, restarted the print spooler, cleared stuck jobs, and reinstalled the HP LaserJet P1606dn driver. Network users also checked whether Windows was still pointing to the correct printer port.

How this played out: The issue usually came from the Windows 11 printer setup rather than the printer being unusable. Once the correct driver and port were restored, the HP LaserJet P1606dn could print normally instead of staying stuck as an installed-but-nonworking device.