I've had the Brother MFC-3820CN now for about a year. It has been good,
except that it has had this annoying habit of doing some sort of
self-auto cleaning. Even if the unit is turned off (but plugged in), it
will turn itself on and go through this self-auto cleaning. (I'm
calling it cleaning, cause I have not figured out exactly what it is
doing). It doesn't print any output, just makes sounds for a minute or
two and then returns to is off state or idle state.

I was looking around the brother web site and saw there was a firmware
upgrade for the Brother MFC-3820CN. To my surprise, I found out I had
version "B" and they were now up to version "G". I just installed this
yesterday, so it might be too soon to tell if it addressed the
self-auto thing.

I was wondering if anyone else had experience with the firmware upgrade
and if it fixed this problem. I suspect it uses ink, somehow, even
though it doesn't printer during it. I mainly use the printing and
copying part of the printer for blank ink only and rarely use color,
which surprises me that it seems to run out of colors at almost the
same rate it runs out of black ink.

"eastcoastguyz" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>I've had the Brother MFC-3820CN now for about a year. It has been good,
>except that it has had this annoying habit of doing some sort of
>self-auto cleaning. Even if the unit is turned off (but plugged in), it
>will turn itself on and go through this self-auto cleaning. (I'm
>calling it cleaning, cause I have not figured out exactly what it is
>doing). It doesn't print any output, just makes sounds for a minute or
>two and then returns to is off state or idle state.
>
>I was looking around the brother web site and saw there was a firmware
>upgrade for the Brother MFC-3820CN. To my surprise, I found out I had
>version "B" and they were now up to version "G". I just installed this
>yesterday, so it might be too soon to tell if it addressed the
>self-auto thing.
>
>I was wondering if anyone else had experience with the firmware upgrade
>and if it fixed this problem. I suspect it uses ink, somehow, even
>though it doesn't printer during it. I mainly use the printing and
>copying part of the printer for blank ink only and rarely use color,
>which surprises me that it seems to run out of colors at almost the
>same rate it runs out of black ink.

Brother upgraded the frimware for many of their inkjets to overcome aggressive
cleaning cycles. You have probably fixed your problem with the upgrade.
Tony