Problem with Toner on one side of paper. Help!

[Advanced Dark]

I have an HP C5200 printer and it alerts me as my toner is low, and then when it's empty. It has not done so yet but on the left edge of my flyers the black and grey's are fading and getting worse. Only on the edge though. The rest of the flyer is fine with no fading of the blacks or greys.

A big WTF? Is it the toner cartridge that's defective...the printer??? All the colors come out fine and dont' seem to be fading anywhere.

 

[Kable24]

shake it

 

[jaguarr]

HP doesn't make a model C5200 printer. Okidata does, but not HP. HP does make a Laserjet 5200, but it's a monochrome printer and you indicate that yours is color. I'm assuming this is a laser printer of some sort? Kable is right, if that's the case, that you can sometimes shake the cartridge and it will help fix the problem. The reason for this is that, as the powder based toners start to deplete in the cartridge they aren't evenly distributed inside the chamber. Shaking them helps redistribute the toner so it prints more evenly.

jag

 

[Advanced Dark]

I meant okidata. Shaking it doesn't help. It's not fading all over the paper just a perfectly straight line. Someone suggested it might be the drum.

 

[jaguarr]

Could be the drum. Could be the rollers are dirty, but very unlikely. Okidata makes sh1tty printers, so I can't say I'm overly surprised. Your best bet is to check with their technical support, because something's definitely wrong with your printer.

jag

 

[Advanced Dark]

What's the best color laser for your money. Something that's durable and can print lots and lots of flyers.

 

[jaguarr]

What's the best color laser for your money. Something that's durable and can print lots and lots of flyers.

For laser printers, it doesn't get any better than HP, IMHO. I set my wife up with a Color LaserJet 2605dn for her to use for printing flyers and brochures for her real estate business. It came with a networking card and a duplexer for automated double-sided printing as part of the package and is fully post-script compatible. I just set it up on our private LAN and she can print to it over her wireless connection. I've even got it set up so she can print to it over the internet if she needs/wants to. The output on it is fantastic for a Color Laser, and we've played with some of the HP Glossy Media for LaserJets and I've been really impressed with how the output looks. She's gotten some really nice compliments about how great her flyers and brochures look from her clients, and it doesn't cost us a lot like it would if we printed them through her company or at Kinko's or something. I did a lot of research prior to buying it, comparing it against Epson, Lexmark and Cannon printers and none of them could really compare in quality, especially for the price. HP sells it for $499 but I found it on Froogle for around $375, I think. We've had it about eight months and the toner cartridges that came with it are still 3/4 full and she's printed quite a bit of stuff, so I've been happy with the return on investment. The other cool thing is that all the printer config and administration stuff is available through the network card, so I can just access it through my web browser to administrate it and check on toner levels, etc. Very cool printer.

jag

 

[Spelunking Man]

I second that. I use HP Colour LaserJet 2600 series.

 

[Advanced Dark]

It was my black drum. Replaced it and all's cool Thanks. Next time I'll get HP.