How to set time and date on Brother MFC fax on HP

By Sai Kiran Pandrala · reviewed by Sai Kiran Pandrala, Editor Last verified: 2026-05-30

Why I wrote this one

I run a small print-shop service on the side - mostly weekends, sometimes after-hours when an SMB calls in panicking. Last month at a panchayat e-Seva centre in Tumakuru, a customer had bought a HP unit on Croma the same day and could not get past the basics. They wanted exactly this: Configure the system clock + date on a Brother MFC fax unit. The shop walked them through a generic setup, the unit threw a Drum end of life hint banner on the panel, and the customer ended up at my desk with the box still in plastic.

This guide is the same runbook I used that evening. It is the System Clock / Date and Time flow specifically on a HP machine, but I have added the cross-checks you need when the unit is part of a heterogeneous fleet - because in real Indian SMB offices, you rarely have one brand of printer. There is a Brother MFC in admin, a HP DeskJet in accounts, a Canon PIXMA in design, and someone's personal Epson EcoTank on a side desk. Getting one task right per brand sounds simple until you realise each brand hides the menu in a different place.

One brand quirk to put on your radar right away: HP LaserJet Pro M236/M283 will silently downgrade IPPS to IPP if the EWS certificate expired - the EWS certificate self-renews only after a reboot, not on schedule. I learned that one the hard way and the customer was patient enough to let me re-do the setup the next morning. Saves time if you know it going in. The tool I keep on the laptop bag for work like this is Xerox Easy Printer Manager 1.5 - free, reliable, and it covers 80% of the customer requests I see.

What you need on the desk before you start

Print-shop work is mostly preparation. Once you start, you do not want to be running back to the laptop for a missing tool or hunting for the toner cartridge box for the model number. Get all this within arm's reach before you start.

• The HP unit physically accessible - the front panel reachable, the rear ports visible, and the power button within arm's reach. If you are dealing with a HP MFP in a built-in cabinet, slide it out first.
• Network credentials: Wi-Fi SSID and password if it is wireless, DHCP-reserved IP or static IP if it is wired. For SMB sites with Cisco infrastructure, confirm the printer VLAN tag with the network admin before plugging in.
• An admin laptop on the same subnet. I keep a refurbished Lenovo ThinkPad T480 (INR 22,000 / USD 262 used) just for print-shop calls. Web UIs do not render well on phones.
• The unit's model number and serial. HP firmware revisions differ by even a single sub-model. Knowing the exact SKU saves you 20 minutes of menu-spelunking.
• The toner / ink box. Some firmware-level operations ask for the cartridge ID; quicker to grab it now than dig in the bin later.

Tools I usually have open

• Wireshark 4.2 (for IPP/SMB capture)
• SecureCRT 9.4 (when the MFP exposes serial console)
• Pantum CW1000 admin web UI
• Bonjour Browser 1.5.6 (for IPP Everywhere discovery)

Even if you only end up using two of these, the others are useful when something goes wrong. Wireshark in particular is the one I reach for when the unit advertises a service but a client cannot find it - and yes, that happens with Wi-Fi Direct on channel-1-congested 2.4 GHz floors more often than you would think.

The actual procedure - step by step

This is the path I used in the a school admin block in T Nagar, Chennai job last month. It is written for a HP unit with current 2025-2026 firmware. Older revisions may shuffle the menu structure; the labels are stable across firmware generations but the menu depth changes.

1. Power the unit on and let it finish its boot self-test. On a HP cold-boot, this takes 90-150 seconds. Do not interrupt - on Brother MFCs I have seen interrupted boots leave the unit asking for cartridge re-seat on next power-up. Wait for the home screen.
2. Confirm network connectivity. Print a network-config page. On Brother, hold the Wi-Fi button for 3 seconds then tap 'Print'. On Canon PIXMA, hold Resume for 2 seconds. On HP, Menu -> Reports -> Network Configuration. On Lexmark, Menu -> Reports -> Network Setup Page. The IP address is what you need.
3. From the admin laptop, open the printer's web UI at https://<printer-ip>. If the cert is self-signed, accept the warning. Sign in as admin. Default credentials are: Brother (admin / initpass), HP (admin / blank on first boot), Canon (ADMIN / canon), Lexmark (admin / admin), Kyocera (Admin / Admin), Ricoh (admin / blank), Xerox (admin / 1111). Change the default immediately - I have seen GeM compliance auditors flag default-password MFPs as a sev-2 finding.
4. Navigate to Web Based Management -> Administrator -> Date and Time + Time Zone. On the HP web UI this is the canonical path. If your firmware revision shows a slightly different label, search for the keyword in the menu (most HP EWS revisions have a search box at the top).
5. Fill in the operation-specific fields. For System Clock / Date and Time, the required fields are listed in the section below.
6. Save and apply. HP firmware behaviour: HP and Canon auto-apply on Save; Brother, Lexmark, Kyocera require an explicit 'Submit' or 'Apply' click after Save; Xerox and Ricoh require you to acknowledge a warning prompt that says configuration will reload. The reload takes 30-90 seconds, during which the device is offline.
7. Test from a real client. Do not trust the web UI confirmation. Run the operation end-to-end from a normal user laptop on the same network you will use in production. If the test fails but the web UI says success, the issue is almost always firewall / network ACL on the client side.
8. Document and log. Snap a photo of the final config, save it to a folder labelled with the customer name, the HP serial, and date. Customers call back six months later with 'it stopped working' and your photo is the baseline to compare against.

Two HP quirks worth calling out before you push the config live: HP LaserJet Pro M236/M283 will silently downgrade IPPS to IPP if the EWS certificate expired - the EWS certificate self-renews only after a reboot, not on schedule Also worth knowing: HP LaserJet Pro PIN print holds the job at 'Personal Job' under Apps; setting the PIN slot to 4 digits is firmware-side, 5+ is driver-side.

The fields you actually need to fill in

Setting the system clock on a Brother MFC fax is not just about the panel display. The clock drives fax-header time stamps (which Indian commercial law treats as the legal timestamp on faxed contracts), job log entries, scan-to-email Received headers, and DST behaviour where applicable. Get it wrong and a TDS challan dated 30 March can show up at the receiver as 1 April with all the interest charges that triggers.

• Date format: dd/mm/yyyy for India, mm/dd/yyyy for US channels (rare in Indian deployments). Pick dd/mm/yyyy unless the customer explicitly asks otherwise.
• Time format: 24-hour for office fax headers, 12-hour for consumer SOHO. Banks and CAs prefer 24-hour because the audit trail is unambiguous.
• Time zone: UTC+05:30 for India. The unit may list it as 'Chennai/Kolkata/Mumbai/New Delhi' in the dropdown.
• DST: OFF for India (no DST). Tick OFF explicitly - some firmware defaults to ON and silently skips an hour on the last Sunday of March.
• SNTP server: time.windows.com, pool.ntp.org, or your domain controller. Polling interval 24h is standard.

On Brother MFCs the SNTP section is under Web Based Management -> Administrator -> SNTP. The tick to 'Synchronize with SNTP server' is OFF by default, which is why most customers end up with a drifted clock six months in. Always turn it ON.

Verifying it works - real commands

The verification I run before declaring done.

# From the admin laptop, check the SNTP server is reachable:
Test-NetConnection -ComputerName time.windows.com -Port 123

# Issue a manual fax-clock query from the panel (Brother MFC):
Menu -> General Setup -> Date & Time -> Check current

# Print a fax journal report to confirm the timestamp is correct:
Menu -> Reports -> Fax Journal -> Print

# Validate SNTP sync via the EWS log:
Web Based Management -> Administrator -> SNTP -> Synchronization Status
# Look for: Last sync: <within 24h>, server: pool.ntp.org, RTT: <200ms

When it fails - the real root causes

When the procedure does not work, the cause is almost always one of these five. I rank them in the order I check on a real service call.

1. Firmware out of date. HP pushes minor revisions every 4-8 weeks. Anything older than 6 months has a non-trivial chance of menu paths having shifted or a known bug applying. Update first, retry second.
2. Network reach failure. mDNS blocked, VLAN mismatch, SMB share unreachable, SMTP port blocked. Run a ping and a port-test from the admin laptop before blaming the printer.
3. Credential mismatch. The admin password the customer thinks is set is not what is actually set. Try the default, then the customer's usual pattern, then ask for a reset.
4. Hardware-feature mismatch. The model SKU does not include the feature the customer thinks they bought. Worth verifying against the spec sheet before spending an hour debugging an option that does not physically exist.
5. Genuine hardware fault. The unit throws a panel code like 49.4C02 that maps to a real service condition. At that point, factory reset will not fix it; the unit needs service or RMA.

Out of every 10 service calls, my rough split is 4-3-1-1-1 in that order. Most problems are firmware or network. Hardware faults are the rarest cause, even though customers blame hardware first.

Realistic cost picture (Indian SMB, 2026)

Customers ask for prices in the same call as the configuration help. These are typical 2026 channel quotes I see in Bengaluru and Chennai.

Channel-wise, I usually source from Vijay Sales B2B counter (Mumbai - express delivery for emergency consumables) for warranty-sensitive deployments, and from Amazon Business / Flipkart Wholesale for sub-INR 30,000 SKUs where GST invoicing is the priority. GeM (Government e-Marketplace) consumer MFP buys must specify exact toner duty cycle in the BoQ - missing it sinks the L1 evaluation.

Important rule on consumables: a 30% saving on a non-OEM toner can cost you INR 18,000 (USD 215) when the drum fails six months later because the cheap toner left residue. I never recommend non-OEM consumables for production MFPs. For occasional-use home printers, the calculus is different.

One field story I still think about

About eight months ago I got a call from a yoga centre's billing desk in Indiranagar. They had a HP unit on the floor and it had started behaving badly. The owner had already reset it twice. He was about to call the service centre, which on a Saturday in Bengaluru means a Monday visit at best.

I drove over with the toolkit. Pulled out Wireshark 4.2 (for IPP/SMB capture) and started capturing traffic from the printer to the laptop. The unit was throwing 59.F0 in its internal log buffer. The unit clock had drifted 47 minutes; fax pages going out with timestamps 47 minutes ahead of real time, and the receiver (a bank) was bouncing them as 'future-dated'. The SNTP server was reachable but the unit was set to UTC instead of UTC+5:30.

What I took away from that call: in 2026, every SMB MFP needs at minimum current firmware + correct time/date + sane network defaults. Most silent communication errors I see are configuration mismatches at the edge - not hardware faults. The firmware default on units sold in 2022-2023 still has many insecure defaults; you have to bump them up after install. I now include this step in every onboarding checklist.

Total time on site: 65 minutes. Customer paid INR 1,000 (USD 12). The unit has been stable since.

FAQs I get from actual customers

Will this work on the international variant of my HP unit?

Mostly. The web UI and the menu paths are stable across regions; what differs is the cartridge region-lock and a few feature toggles (some markets get features others do not). For configuration like time/date sync, Wi-Fi onboarding and PIN print, the path is identical. The language pack may display the option in your local language.

How often should I run preventive checks?

For SMB units printing under 1,000 pages a month, every 3-4 months is fine. For production print shops doing 10,000+ pages, monthly: check the maintenance counter, the fuser life percentage on lasers, the ink-pad fullness on inkjets, and the firmware revision.

Will this void my warranty?

Standard configuration through the official web UI or panel menus does not void warranty. Setting the time/date does not void warranty. Updating firmware through the official HP portal does not void warranty. What voids warranty: opening the chassis, using non-OEM toner that damages the unit, modifying the firmware with non-official tools. Stay within the official channels and you are safe.

What if my model is a slightly different revision?

Cross-check the model code on the rating plate at the back of the unit. Major firmware generations sometimes shift menus by one or two levels. Search for the keyword inside the EWS - most modern HP web UIs have a search box that finds menu options.

Can I roll back if something goes wrong?

Configuration rollback: yes. Most HP EWS let you export the current config to a .bin or .json file before changing anything; you can re-import it to roll back. Firmware rollback: no on most units - newer firmware writes version-locked bootloader entries that refuse older binaries. Take the config export before you make changes.

Is the customer's data safe during this procedure?

For configuration changes - yes, no user data is touched. For Wi-Fi password changes - the printer disconnects briefly while rejoining; held print jobs in RAM will be lost if the unit reboots. For fax forwarding setup - the SMTP password is stored encrypted in the unit's NVRAM; treat it as you would any other credential.

Should I update firmware before or after this procedure?

Before. Always before. Firmware updates can shift menu paths and can include fixes that make the procedure go smoother. The exception: if the customer is mid-deadline and a firmware update is non-trivial (30-45 minutes including reboot), defer to after.

Keeping the unit healthy so this is the last time

After the immediate fix, these habits keep the HP unit healthy.

• Schedule a quarterly health check. Print a configuration page, save it to the customer's folder, diff against the previous quarter. Drift shows up early this way.
• Subscribe to the HP firmware update notifications. Most brands have an opt-in email list; sign the customer's admin address up.
• Cap the print job retention to 24 hours. Long retention fills disk on devices with internal storage, leading to silent paper-jam-look-alike errors that confuse customers.
• Document the admin password in a password manager - Bitwarden Premium is INR 850/year (USD 10) per user. Customers lose printer admin passwords more often than any other credential.
• Photograph the rating plate at first contact. Model number, serial, manufacture date - all of which you will need for warranty claims and replacement part orders.
• Build an inventory spreadsheet: unit, location, IP, MAC, firmware revision, last-serviced date. Saves hours when a customer calls in a panic.
• Educate the end user on what 'paper out', 'toner low', and 'replace drum' actually mean - many service calls are user error.

None of this is glamorous. All of it pays back in fewer Saturday-evening emergency calls.

Closing the loop

The System Clock / Date and Time flow on a HP unit is not complicated once you know the menu path and the gotchas. The first time takes 30-45 minutes because you are looking around the EWS for the right menu. By the third time it is under 10 minutes including the verification test.

If the procedure does not work after one careful pass, do not keep retrying in panic mode. Take a screenshot, take a panel photo, save the network-config page, and step back. Most failures are network or firmware related, and both are diagnosable from the artefacts you just captured. Repeating the same wrong steps faster does not fix anything.

I keep a small printed cheat-sheet in the toolkit with the default credentials for every major brand and the panel-reset shortcut for each. It lives next to the toner-vacuum and the spare network cable. Boring, but it has saved me twenty minutes of fumbling more times than I can count.

Related fixes

Related guides worth a look while you sort this one out:

• How to set time and date on Brother MFC fax on Brother
• How to set time and date on Brother MFC fax on Canon
• How to set time and date on Brother MFC fax on Epson
• How to set time and date on Brother MFC fax on Kyocera
• How to set time and date on Brother MFC fax on Lexmark
• How to set time and date on Brother MFC fax on Pantum