LaserJet 1020 has vertical 'blank' area or white streak

[Michael 23]

I love my little laserjet... but suddenly everything has a streak
right up the middle about 1" wide where no toner is being applied. I
have run the internal cleaning, checked for any foreign bodies ( though
hard to see for sure) and of course the old 'shake the toner' trick...
no luck.

This thing worked perfectly until the other day when suddenly every
page has this 'blank' area.. which makes it utterly unusable. I bought
a brand new toner cartridge... no change.

How can I check or clean the parts that may be causing this?

 

[Tony]

I love my little laserjet... but suddenly everything has a streak
right up the middle about 1" wide where no toner is being applied. I
have run the internal cleaning, checked for any foreign bodies ( though
hard to see for sure) and of course the old 'shake the toner' trick...
no luck.

This thing worked perfectly until the other day when suddenly every
page has this 'blank' area.. which makes it utterly unusable. I bought
a brand new toner cartridge... no change.

How can I check or clean the parts that may be causing this?

Michael
Since you have eliminated the toner cartridge there are two possibilities. The
laser scanner or the fuser (can be a tear in the sleeve over the heating
element).
To check this you need to perform a half test.
Print a page (the internal test page will do by pushing one of the buttons on
the printer), lift the top cover when the trailing edge of the sheet of paper
just disappears into the printer.
You may need to experiment with this, the intention is to stop the paper so
that some of it is still under the toner cartridge and some of it has passed
that point and entered the fuser which is located at the back and top of the
printer.
Carefully remove the paper. If there is missing toner on the portion of the
paper that was between the toner cartridge and the fuser then the laser scanner
is at fault. If that portion has toner but the portion that has reached the
fuser has no toner then something is removing the toner. This can be a piece of
paper stuck just before the fuser or in rare cases the fuser sleeve has been
torn and a piece of it is removing the toner.
Did you have a paper jam just before the problem occurred? The part of the page
that is missing toner - is there absolutely no toner or is it sort of messed up?
If the problem is the laser scanner it is likely to be something covering the
laser scanner lens.
Try the half test and let us know what you find.
Tony