HP Forum Archive 11

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HP 97 non-reading of Mag. cards Message #1 Posted by Jeff Maher on 3 Apr 2003, 2:31 p.m. I have a Hp 97 and love it, however when I go to read in a program form a Mag. card it will sometimes read in the first side, but not the second. The display will come up and say error. I would like to know is this just a matter of cleaning the cards, or does this require more serious work? Thank you for the assistance

Re: HP 97 non-reading of Mag. cards Message #2 Posted by David Smith on 3 Apr 2003, 5:52 p.m., in response to message #1 by Jeff Maher Assuming that you have already replaced the reader drive roller rubber, it could be (in estimated order of likelyhood) dirty cards, dirty reader head, flakey reader switch contacts, slipping worm gear shaft coupling, failing little blue tantalum capacitor on the reader board.

Re: HP 97 non-reading of Mag. cards Message #3 Posted by Jeff maher on 3 Apr 2003, 6:39 p.m., in response to message #2 by David Smith Dave: Thanks for your response, what do you clean your cards with? As far as cleaning the card reader, do I need to disassemble the unit to do this? Or canI just spray some contact cleaner into the slot? I tried running the abrasive cleaner through the slot. Afterwards the reader started making noises. Any thoughts on this? Thanks again. Jeff

Re: HP 97 non-reading of Mag. cards Message #4 Posted by David Smith on 4 Apr 2003, 6:12 p.m., in response to message #3 by Jeff maher You can use Windex for cleaning the cards. I think the noise that you got after running the abrasive card through may indicate your rubber roller or work gear coupling is bad. You may have to do a reader rebuild... One good way that I have found for cleaning the heads is to wet a card well with 91% isopropyl alcohol and then insert it into the (powered off) card read. Push and pull it around several times. Dry off the card. Insert and remove a few more times. Repeat everything a few times. The alcohol left in the reader will cause the reader to slip until it drys. You can speed up the process by using canned "air" (NEVER an air compressor). Finally use the head cleaning card.

Re: HP 97 non-reading of Mag. cards Message #5 Posted by Jeff Maher on 4 Apr 2003, 8:07 p.m., in response to message #4 by David Smith David: Thanks again for your suggestions, and I will give it a try this weekend. Jeff

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