# Tech: printer feed jams?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tech-printer-feed-jams/505669>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 7, 2009, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tech-printer-feed-jams/505669 "2009-08-07T18:06:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\
**Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tech-printer-feed-jams/505669/1 "2009-08-07T18:06:40Z")

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For the past 1.5 years I’ve had a [Brother HL-2040 laser printer.](http://www.brother-usa.com/Printer/ModelDetail.aspx?ProductID=HL2040) Running a home-based business, so typically the paper tray is filled with a stack of FedEx shipping labels interleaved with plain white paper: print a FedEx shipping label, then print a shipment record sheet on plain paper, and presto, the printer is ready for the next shipment. Worked great. Whenever I needed to print an ordinary document, I’d throw several sheets of plain paper in the tray, print, and all went well; printer never jammed.

Recently we upgraded to a [Brother MFC-7440N](http://www.brother-usa.com/mfc/ModelDetail.aspx?ProductID=mfc7440n), a wireless networked multifunction machine. The feed works fine with the shipping label/whitepaper alternating stack I described previously. But if I stick several sheets of plain white paper in the tray to print a document, this printer will reliably pick up a couple of sheets at once by the time it gets to page 3 or 4 of the document. This wouldn’t be so bad, except there’s almost always an offset of a few inches between the two sheets, so the print ends up partly on each page.

So what gives? I’m buying the cheapest paper I can from OfficeStapleDepotMax, but it seemed to feed fine in the old printer. Should I be looking for more expensive paper? Might this solve my problem?

Thanks…