220-1101 Hardware and Network Troubleshooting Practice Question
A technician is troubleshooting a network printer issue. The printer is connected via Ethernet to a managed switch. Users on some workstations can print without problems, but users on other workstations cannot. On a problematic workstation, the technician can ping the printer's IP address successfully and can access the printer's built-in web interface. When attempting to print a test page, the job appears in the local print queue on the workstation but never reaches the printer. The printer's event log shows no errors or rejected jobs. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is that candidates see successful pings and web access and assume the problem must be network-related, overlooking that application-layer issues like a corrupt printer driver can cause print jobs to fail locally despite perfect network connectivity.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
The printer driver on the workstation is incorrect or corrupt.
The printer is reachable via ping and web interface, confirming Layer 3 connectivity is fine. The job appears in the local print queue but never reaches the printer, and the printer logs show no errors, which points to a local issue on the workstation. An incorrect or corrupt printer driver can cause the print job to be spooled locally but fail to render or transmit properly to the printer, even though network connectivity is intact.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The printer's IP address is in a different subnet from the workstation.
Why it's wrong here
IP subnet mismatch would prevent direct communication only if no router exists between the two subnets. Since ping and web access to the printer succeed, Layer 3 routing is functioning fine, meaning the workstation can reach the printer at the network layer. A driver issue specifically impairs the application-layer print protocol (e.g., RAW on port 9100) without affecting other services, so the successful network tests isolate the fault to the driver, not IP addressing.
- ✗
The workstation's firewall is blocking the printer traffic.
Why it's wrong here
A workstation firewall typically blocks inbound or outbound connections by port or program. If it were blocking traffic to the printer, it would likely also block ICMP echo requests (ping) and HTTP web management, because those use different protocols and ports. Since both ping and web access succeed, the firewall is not dropping packets en route to the printer. Moreover, a corrupt driver causes the print job to be spooled locally and never transmitted, whereas a firewall would cause a connection-timeout error, not a silent print failure.
- ✓
The printer driver on the workstation is incorrect or corrupt.
Why this is correct
A printer driver is responsible for translating the application's print output into the printer's native page description language (e.g., PCL, PostScript). An incorrect or corrupt driver can cause the spooler to hold the job indefinitely, send malformed data that the printer rejects, or cause garbled output. This happens entirely at the software layer, leaving the network stack fully operational—which is exactly why ping and web access succeed while printing fails. The driver is the only component in the list that operates above the transport layer and can selectively break the print service.
- ✗
The switch port for the printer is assigned to a different VLAN than the workstation.
Why it's wrong here
If the switch port for the printer were assigned to a different VLAN than the workstation, the two devices would reside in different broadcast domains, and the workstation's ARP request for the printer would go unanswered unless inter-VLAN routing is configured. A successful ping proves that the printer's IP address is reachable, so either the ports are in the same VLAN or a router is correctly forwarding traffic between the VLANs. Additionally, a VLAN mismatch would produce a total loss of connectivity to the printer, not a software-level print failure. Since all network-level tests pass, the problem must be higher in the stack, specifically in the driver.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This 220-1101 practice question is part of Courseiva's free CompTIA certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the 220-1101 exam.