Laser Printer printing gunk after refilling

nate

I refilled my printer with after-market cheapo eBay toner -- and now it prints random streaks and garbage on the edges of the paper. What's the deal? Any idea on how to fix?

John

Sounds like some toner got outside the cartridge and onto the rollers? Sometimes when that happens you just have to let the printer run until the toner stops appearing. You can try "printing" a couple hundred blank sheets, and hopefully by the end of the run the toner will no longer be present. Some laser printers actually have a setting for this purpose that simply runs paper through the printer until you tell it to stop, or until it it reaches a number of pages you designate.

nate

I bet you're right. I went ahead and ordered a cheapo cartridge/drum replacement again, it's only a few more dollars. Then I noticed there's a new Brother for $200 with wireless, twice the speed and 4x the memory AND duplex printing. I think I might make the plunge and replace this ol' beast of an HL-5040.

John

Wow, very cool. Hopefully it won't also double as a heater for your apartment.

nate

My "new Brother" printer is still kicking 6 years later. Nuts. (Though I haven't done any toner refilling on this one... go figure.)

John

Cool! With 12-packs of toner going for $79 on eBay, there's not much reason to worry about toner re-filling.