Help! White lines on Okidata C5100

[eavedesian]

I only have 7613 pages on this printer bought brand new by me. I do not
use official oki toner I buy the generic stuff. I am getting white
lines on the left side of the page when I try to print pictures. Text
prints fine.

I cleaned the leds with iso alcohol with no improvement. Grayscale
prints with the same effect but more pronounced. Fuser life says 83%
remaining, belt life is 79% remaining, drum lifes are all about 50 %
left.

Any suggestions? I always use power save on this thing....I can't
believe I bought this led instead of a laser version in the hopes of
prolonging toner life and now I have this to worry about.......

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Warren Block]

I only have 7613 pages on this printer bought brand new by me. I do not
use official oki toner I buy the generic stuff.

With that page count, you're probably only on the second batch of toner.
However, a low-quality batch of toner might damage a drum or fuser.

I am getting white
lines on the left side of the page when I try to print pictures. Text
prints fine.

More details are needed. Are the lines vertical or horizontal?
Continuous? Always in the same place? How thick? Sharp or blurry? A
picture of an actual print may help.

I cleaned the leds with iso alcohol with no improvement. Grayscale
prints with the same effect but more pronounced. Fuser life says 83%
remaining, belt life is 79% remaining, drum lifes are all about 50 %
left.

A dirty or failed LED would make a continuous stripe on both color and
black and white prints. However, it may not be easily visible on black
and white text. Get a good light and visually inspect the LEDs for
gunk. Sometimes toner or other stuff will stick to a surface and
alcohol won't move it, where a fingernail will.

Could be a drum or fuser problem, also. Actually, the fuser would be my
first guess, particularly if you reuse paper and may have accidentally
fed a stapled sheet through.

Any suggestions? I always use power save on this thing....I can't
believe I bought this led instead of a laser version in the hopes of
prolonging toner life and now I have this to worry about.......

Neither LED nor laser printers have toner life issues. Power save
should make no difference, either.

 

[eavedesian]

A dirty or failed LED would make a continuous stripe on both color and

black and white prints. However, it may not be easily visible on black
and white text. Get a good light and visually inspect the LEDs for
gunk. Sometimes toner or other stuff will stick to a surface and
alcohol won't move it, where a fingernail will.

Could be a drum or fuser problem, also. Actually, the fuser would be my
first guess, particularly if you reuse paper and may have accidentally
fed a stapled sheet through.

Appears as though I did my own troubleshooting on this one. First I
went into Word and printed pages with all yellow, blue, red, and black
shadings. When I printed the yellow and red they were perfect! Blue had
a little splotching and black was really bad. Always across the whole
page and ALWAYS in the same area of the page.

I swapped the led between the yellow and black with no change and then
reprinted a black page and then opened the printer mid cycle. The black
drum was indeed missing ink toner in the areas that it was missing on
the page. Problem solved!

Question is why did this damn thing die so quick? I'm about to go out
and spend 150.00 but before I do, is it worth it? Are these printers
crap? Should I just spend the extra money and buy a whole new printer?

 

[Lee]

Appears as though I did my own troubleshooting on this one. First I
went into Word and printed pages with all yellow, blue, red, and black
shadings. When I printed the yellow and red they were perfect! Blue had
a little splotching and black was really bad. Always across the whole
page and ALWAYS in the same area of the page.

I swapped the led between the yellow and black with no change and then
reprinted a black page and then opened the printer mid cycle. The black
drum was indeed missing ink toner in the areas that it was missing on
the page. Problem solved!

Question is why did this damn thing die so quick? I'm about to go out
and spend 150.00 but before I do, is it worth it? Are these printers
crap? Should I just spend the extra money and buy a whole new printer?

I don't know about Oki's current practice, but many printers come new
with a 'trial' amount of toner/ink.
Regards
Lee

An Oki user for 15 years

 

[Warren Block]

You said you'd used generic toner. If it was low quality, or perhaps
not even the right type, that could have damaged the black drum.

I don't know about Oki's current practice, but many printers come new
with a 'trial' amount of toner/ink.

The Okis do that also. The printers themselves are not quite as well
built or as polished as upper-end HP lasers, but they work fine.

I know of several 5100/5150/5200s that have held up well in a dirty
warehouse environment.

 

[Tony]

Appears as though I did my own troubleshooting on this one. First I
went into Word and printed pages with all yellow, blue, red, and black
shadings. When I printed the yellow and red they were perfect! Blue had
a little splotching and black was really bad. Always across the whole
page and ALWAYS in the same area of the page.

I swapped the led between the yellow and black with no change and then
reprinted a black page and then opened the printer mid cycle. The black
drum was indeed missing ink toner in the areas that it was missing on
the page. Problem solved!

Question is why did this damn thing die so quick? I'm about to go out
and spend 150.00 but before I do, is it worth it? Are these printers
crap? Should I just spend the extra money and buy a whole new printer?

These are very good printers, I would not get rid of it. Your diagnosis is
perfect, if the drum is missing toner in the same place as the page then the
drum is at fault.
You will not have damaged the drum with a compatible toner, I have never come
across that. In some countries OKI will replace a drum that fails prematurely
at a pro-rated price, well worth a try.
Tony

 

[eavedesian]

No they said since I didn't use an oki product that they will not honor
any kind of warranty.

I also found out that they advertise some kind of diferent toner. A
smaller molecule type. This is being used in a home environment.

 

[Tony]

Hmmm. In most countries a company cannot deny warranty service because of the
use of non OEM toner (or inks for that matter). Unfortunately it is a non
trivial issue to fight the good fight. Most people cannot afford the time or
money to do this. It is even worse when you consider that there is no
documented evidence, that I have seen, that toner (OEM or compatible) damages
drums.
Tony

 

[eavedesian]

Hmmm. In most countries a company cannot deny warranty service because of the
use of non OEM toner (or inks for that matter). Unfortunately it is a non
trivial issue to fight the good fight. Most people cannot afford the time or
money to do this. It is even worse when you consider that there is no
documented evidence, that I have seen, that toner (OEM or compatible) damages
drums.
Tony

Could I have dammaged the toner drum because of the paper I use? I use
a really cheap copy paper. Really light weight. I use this stuff cus
it's cheap.

 

[Tony]

Could I have dammaged the toner drum because of the paper I use? I use
a really cheap copy paper. Really light weight. I use this stuff cus
it's cheap.

If you have used coated paper that is not specifically formulated for a Laser
printer you may have damaged the fuser. Non coated paper will not do this. It
is unlikely that cheap paper will be coated. Coated paper does not damage drums
however.
Having said that, laser printers are very sensitive to the quality of paper.
This manifests itself normally as misfeeding and/or paper jams. Other than the
coated paper issue above I have not seen a single case where paper damages
drums.
Bottom line is if the paper does not misfeed or jam and is not coated then you
should be OK.
The above remarks do not apply necessarily to inkjets which have a different
set of paper requirements.
Tony

 

[Yianni]

You will not have damaged the drum with a compatible toner,

I have never come across that.

Why do you said this? A bad toner could damage the drum (in most cases it
doesn't damage it permanently, but as long as it contains the bad toner the
drum won't work well). And because the oki c5100 recycles the toner, things
are worse.

 

[Tony]

Why do you said this? A bad toner could damage the drum (in most cases it
doesn't damage it permanently, but as long as it contains the bad toner the
drum won't work well). And because the oki c5100 recycles the toner, things
are worse.

Yianni
I can only speak from personal experience. I haven't seen any permanent damage
to a drum caused by toner.
I have seen poor quality toner produce poor quality print of course, maybe we
are in agreement on this.
Tony

 

[Yianni]

I haven't seen any permanent damage to a drum caused by toner.

I have seen poor quality toner produce poor quality print of course,
maybe we are in agreement on this.

Of course we are in agreement. Fortunately, in most times there is no
permanent damage.
On the other hand I surprised how much toner the drum contains. I estimate
about 1/3 of a toner cartridge.
I'm almost sure, if the user empties the drum and he puts an original toner,
the problem will be solved, and he would not be in doubt. Then he could try
to refill it again.

 

[Warren Block]

Of course we are in agreement. Fortunately, in most times there is no
permanent damage.
On the other hand I surprised how much toner the drum contains. I estimate
about 1/3 of a toner cartridge.
I'm almost sure, if the user empties the drum and he puts an original toner,
the problem will be solved, and he would not be in doubt. Then he could try
to refill it again.

The OP said he used "generic" toner, and implied that it may have been
the wrong type.

 

[Eric A.]

Of course we are in agreement. Fortunately, in most times there is no
permanent damage.
On the other hand I surprised how much toner the drum contains. I estimate
about 1/3 of a toner cartridge.
I'm almost sure, if the user empties the drum and he puts an original toner,
the problem will be solved, and he would not be in doubt. Then he could try
to refill it again.

Thanks guys I'm going to try this because I am now having problems
with the Cyan and Magenta. I just put a new black one in and still had
some line issues.

So I went and printed out a black page and set "use 100% K toner" in
the advance set-up menu and then swapped toner/drum units in the "K"
position and found that the only image/toner drum that was working
perfectly was the yellow and black units cyan was bad and magenta had
a very slight vertical line but yes it was indeed there.


Eric A.
313-268-0541
"Mr. Propane Torch"

 

[Eric A.]

The OP said he used "generic" toner, and implied that it may have been
the wrong type.

That is not what I meant by "Generic" I meant I went to one of those
refill places on-line and ordered the one they specify for my printer.
So if it was the wrong kind then that's what they sent me.


Eric A.
313-268-0541
"Mr. Propane Torch"

 

[Tony]

Thanks guys I'm going to try this because I am now having problems
with the Cyan and Magenta. I just put a new black one in and still had
some line issues.

So I went and printed out a black page and set "use 100% K toner" in
the advance set-up menu and then swapped toner/drum units in the "K"
position and found that the only image/toner drum that was working
perfectly was the yellow and black units cyan was bad and magenta had
a very slight vertical line but yes it was indeed there.


Eric A.
313-268-0541
"Mr. Propane Torch"

Eric
I believe you can swap the drum/toner units between positions on this printer,
if you do that and check the results you should be able to work out whether you
have drum issues or whether it is something else by a careful swapping regime.
It's a usefuil diagnostic tool.
The entire drum/toner unit must be swapped of course, fortunately the drums and
toners are designed to prevent putting the wrong toner in a drum!!
As Yianni has said, at least a third of the toner is dumped into the drum unit
when you fit a new toner so if the toner you have is poor quality it will
remain so until all of the toner that was dumped in the drum is used up, that
means that if you replace bad toner you will need to remove the drum and empty
out the old toner first and perhaps remove the toner that you see that sticks
to the drum with extreme care. No scratches, no exposure to light and no wiping
the drum completely since there may be some lubricant on the drum that you
really don't want to disturb. Then after several pages printed you should start
to see whether there is improvement or not.
Tony