Jetdirect 615n/HP4600DN problems

[Rick Gillespie]

My company has a number of the HP4600DN printers running on a Windows 20000 IP/Novell IPX network and we have recently come up with a problem with the Jetdirect 615n (J6057A) 10/100 card. The printer quits printing. Sometimes power on/off reset will restore operation but recently this would not work on two of our printers that seem to have the same problem. Symptoms: Jetdirect not seen on network by IP or IPX - no responce to ping either.
Unable to print (not even test page).
Printing configuration from the control panel only prints only the first of two pages - the second page contains all the network settings.
On both printers there was no link light and the network cable/connections tested good with with test equipment.
Jetdirect cards appear to be dead or not recognized by the HP4600DN - have even cleaned connectors on cards and reinserted them.
The confusing part of this problem is when I brought them in from the field after replacing them with new boards.
I powered down my local office HP4600DN and inserted one of the dead cards. It worked! I ran it through manual and auto configurations and could not get it to fail. The same was true with the other 615n card. It worked too.
I have read on another part of the forum that others have experience this phenomenon by taking supposed broken jetdirect cards and letting them lay around on the desk a couple of days and they fix themselves? Could this be a thermal intermittant problem that could be a manufacturing defect common to the jetdirect card? And could it be the card problem could have been fixed in the field if I had just performed a factory reset to defaults on the card? This is a strange problem we are experiencing with the 615n and at over $300 a card and now multiple failures I would like to know if we are able to send these cards back for replacement?
Thanks for your responses.

[Fred Trimble]

Get in touch with your dealer right away. I had this same problem and tried to fix it myself. It will only get worse. There is apparently a "known problem" with these 615n cards and if they start throwing sporadic problems they will eventually die.

I, like you, tried swapping cables and even a switch. But, since the problem was so sproatic, it was tough to nail it down. Unfortunately, it took a few months for the card to die completely, which allowed the warranty to run out.

Since you can't call HP and talk to a person and the tech support line cuts you off as soon as you tell it the printer is more than a year old, if you don't make a stink before your one-year warranty runs out, you are stuck with a $399 replacement part cost.