In my office we have a laser printer, sorry don’t know the brand. It consistently prints out pages that seem to have black dust and smudges on them. We thought it was the toner, but that doesn’t seem to be the problem. My co-worker tested the toner cartridge on the printer he has at home, and the pages came out fine.
Is there something else we can try? I need to use this printer for a big job and it’s really annoying that the pages come out looking so crappy.
Possibly your corona wire is broken or just plain dirty, try wiping it with a cotton pad.
What h&b is referring to is the fusing system of the printer. Toner gets deposited onto the paper and then has to be fused (melted), by heat, to the paper. It is part of the last stage of processing of the page. So follow the paper trail (as always) and look for the fuser after the toner dispenser.
Since it is on again/off again then, dirt or misalignment is a likely culprit. If it only happens with pages that have a lot of black area on it, then a weak fusing system can be the problem.
It would help if we knew what type of printer it was, but, FTG is right on the money. It’s likely a fusing problem.
Even if there was loose toner roaming around in the printer, the fuser would fuse THAT to the paper.
Sometimes, a page will get jammed in my printer and before it gets fused, I’ll extract it and put it back in the printer, upside down.
The remaining toner still stuck to the paper still gets “fused”
PS: Fuser repairs are usually, not always, but usually pretty costly.