I have an HP Color LaserJet 3600n. I purchased this thing back in January of 2009 for my home, and I have never needed to replace the toner. The printer indicates that each color is still at least half full.
Lately, I’ve noticed that the pages it prints are faded and scratchy looking, with visible horizontal lines running through the pages. Has my toner finally just become too old to produce quality pages? Maybe the toner has just settled too long and its now tightly compacted? Would shaking the cartridges help?
Could the drums have given up before the toner?
Any ideas what may be causing my printer to fail so miserably at its only job?
The toner has provably settled in the cartridge. Take the cartridge out and give it a good shake, reinstall and your problem should be fixed. Note that the symptoms you’ve described also sounds like a toner cartridge that’s going empty. The shake method is a good way to get a few more pages out of a dwindling cartridge.
Also, be careful to place a finger over the cartridge “door” so that when you shake it the door doesn’t open and cover everything with toner.
Are the lines in the direction of the paper path? If they are white (dropouts), that might indicate lack of toner. If dark, that might be a scratch on the drum or fuser rollers.
The imaging drum is part of the cartridge in most printers now, and while you can wipe it (gently), it is not replaceable by itself; just swap the entire toner cartridge.
I’ve never known toner to age or deteriorate, at least over a 20 year lifespan. Drums can deteriorate if exposed to light for a long time.
The horizontal lines may be caused by rollers or belts that have “flat-spotted” from age.
Measure (in mm) the distance between lines and look them up on these defectchartsfor the 3600 to get an idea of what’s causing them. Other than the fuser, most of the possible faults are in the cartridges. It’s possible for the transfer belt to be at fault, but defects on it tend to be every other page as it’s longer than the paper.
laser printers need dry paper… the top sheet on the pile may absorb humidity out of the air…
Also you may have dust in the charge and discharge wires. Damp (eg from humidity) dust conducts better (worse from your point of view.) than dry dust.
Damp paper and dust inside the printer interferes with the electrical properties… as it uses static electricity to stick the toner to the paper, the toner doesn’t stick in the general area of the problem.
The toner does last longer than you, as its plastic with colour inside of it. Its melted onto the paper (by that hot fuser at the back, thus the toasty paper … ) to stick it to the paper.
So check the charge and discharge wires, clean (the cartridges come with a felt cleaner ? you slide it along ? ) and clean the insides of the printer generally, shake the cartridges up, and use dry paper…