Laserjet 5si, light toner over whole page

[strommsarnac]

So my trusty old Laserjet 5si is showing it's age. When I print, I
get what I want printed, but there's also a faint "layer" of toner
covering the whole page. It's very uniform, not banding like one
normally sees. I've never seen a laser printer do what mine is doing.

So before I spend money for a new toner cart, do you all think it's
the toner cart or maybe the fuser?

Thanks for the help.

 

[measekite]

Very unlikely to be the fuser, I can't see how that would happen. Do a half
test, print a page from the multipurpose tray (tray 1), stop the printer by
opening the toner cover. You need to stop the paper so that the leading edge
has gone past the toner cartridge but has not gone right through the fuser. You
might need to practice a bit. When you have it right, remove the cartridge and
look at the page in the printer. If the defect is there on the page it is
almost certainly the toner cartridge.
Tony
MS MVP Printing Image

If you would like expert correct advice call HP Tech support.

 

[strommsarnac]

If you would like expert correct advice call HP Tech support.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

So what you're saying is I should have paid more than the cost of a
toner cart to have someone tell me to buy a new cart. Because that's
the only "correct" advice they could have given.

JFTR, I bought a new toner cartridge and it fixed the problem.

 

[Flasherly]

So what you're saying is I should have paid more than the cost of a
toner cart to have someone tell me to buy a new cart. Because that's
the only "correct" advice they could have given.

JFTR, I bought a new toner cartridge and it fixed the problem.

Recall something from a note, though didn't get a copy of it, about
the differences in electrostatic charges lasers apply to paper. One
charge being within the toner assembly, whereas the opposite charge
occurs over the paper path handling. Light toner and gray fuzz
possibly being an indicator that inside the toner assembly charge unit
there's a malfunction, or an excess contaminate state has occurred.
Over the shoulder printers, such as mine, don't even contain
contaminate and it's simply remixed. I'd presume contaminate occurs
as toner that's been in contact with paper, yet which doesn't carry
through. Not sure there would have been any effect for you, but that
note also mentioned that the path charge unit can be cleaned (I'd
expect to see a bar of sorts) -- recommended method being suitable
clean paper the printer normally uses, to wipe off any toner or
residual materials that shouldn't be inside a printer. No solvents,
sticky finger oils, otherwise, which of course would ruin the printer,
rending instead of bars or fuzzy gray text, a fuzzy sort of
indiscriminate black, as did my last laser after I decided to clean it
up a bit. In any event, nice to know where and why voltage potentials
go.