Seven common laser printer problems

Laser printers are more or less the same as any other printing device available in the market. You only need to be careful with that and do proper timely maintenance work. The best outcome of maintenance is you will get an extraordinary performance that you would love to share with
others.

We have tried to mention the most common laser printer problems that one can face once he or she starts using it. We always advise you to be careful and double-check the problems before you call the printer repair expert. First of all, find the user manual and read it and understand it
carefully or you may go online user manual of the right printer model and try to troubleshoot. In most cases, the problem is very small.

1. Smearing toner and not sticking properly to the paper

If you are facing the problem that your printer toner is not sticking to the paper then there is the possibility of an old fuser assembly or maybe the toner cartridge has any defect from inside. If you feel so, you should not rush to replace cartridges, in many cases, a small troubleshooting idea can fix this problem. What you should do is, get the cartridge out of the printer carefully and shake it horizontally (side by side) slowly. Be careful while doing this because toner may leak outside if you do it fast and can spoil your clothes or floor. Now you need to put it back inside the printer and try again to print. In most cases, this method fixes the problem and surprisingly most don’t face this problem again.

In a few cases but still there is the possibility that this process will not resolve this problem. The next step is to install new toner inside your cartridge. Carefully remove all your old toner and fill the cartridges with a fresh one. After changing the toner, you just need to restart your printer and it will be ready to go.

2. Jams the Paper Tray

This problem is quite common in any laser printer model of any company. The main reason for this problem is grime, dust, rollers getting worn or the wrong size or weight of the page. This problem anyone can avoid with one simple step. Just clean the printer regularly and you will not
face this problem again.

Also, you need to replace the parts of the printer like the drum and drum roll, etc. Change these parts regularly when needed and also check the weight and thickness of the paper and then use.

3. Blurry Prints or the poor printing quality

This can happen because of low toner quantity, some wrong printing density settings, or any other printer settings that are not compatible with the current paper or printing data. You also need to make sure your printer is not by default set to the ink-saving mode or draft mode.

4. Blank Printing Problem

The first and most common possibility is that you haven’t selected the right printer to send the job and data. Anyone can get surprised but seriously this is quite common that resolves the issue in seconds.

You may have no difficulty in printing a huge number of pages in a single click but on the next try or because of some virtual printer or document conversion software for printing. If this is the problem for the cause that you need to check your desktop or laptop to make sure that your printer is set to the proper default printer.

Also you need to check the type of paper (should be a correct one) in the paper tray of the printer. Whenever you are checking this, you need to confirm that the printer power is on mode. It is also possible the switch is turned off by mistake by someone passing by. Also the possibility is that IT expert in the office may shut it down while updating the system and it never brought back to online mode. Anything can happen.

If everything fails and have doubts then just do the universal thing – Reboot.

First of all just restart the software application you are using, if it doesn’t work reboot your computer or laptop.

At the last, just switch off your laser printer for a while before you turn your laptop on. You will get amazed that the problem is solved, there are many common problems that a restart solves in a minute.

5. Incorrect Font

If the font on your document is printed in the wrong font format that you did not select in the document, that problem is occurred clearly by the communicator. The system has sent wrong format of font.

To check this problem properly, you need to go back to your system and start reprinting the document page. It’s time to investigate deeper.

In the next step, you should check the version of the drivers. It should be the latest updated and correct one. Also, you need to make sure that the software on the computer and printer side are compatible with the font selected.

6. Paper with wrinkle / Skewed Images

You need to look at the paper tray and check if the paper on the tray is in line with the printer inside the wall. If the paper is aligned a little bit off, adjust it because when the printer takes the paper if it’s not alight can give the wrong printing because it was inserted with the wrong alignment.

7. Low or empty toner warning at the display

Not the right way to say but warning messages and error alerts are not at all reliable while printing. Many times after installing new cartridges when you try to print, the printer may show the error that your cartridges are empty and ask to replace the whole toner. It is also possible that the cartridges are faulty and not working properly because of defects or damage. But in most cases, when you reset or restart your printer, this problem is eliminated without any effort and takes you out of the annoying situation. You should also try and search for the resetting guidelines for the make and model of the printer and follow it line by line.

All companies don’t have an IT department to solve such technical issues. In that case, call an IT guy and explain your problem. But when you are using a laser printer, it is not big deal. That’s why rather than calling an IT expert, you should try normal tricks and techniques to troubleshoot the common and minor problems of laser printers.