- Joined
- Mar 2, 2015
- Messages
- 1
Hello all,
I have a used HP Color LaserJet 2840 that I bought back in August from eBay, which has been sitting in my garage inoperative. It has a problem I cannot quite figure out...
- Printer was as described... everything appears to work except that it cannot print. Each time it mentions that it cannot read the cartridges and to try again.
- There is Magenta (pink-purple shade) toner dust coming out of the printer. When it shipped, this was in the packaging, and it was all over the inside of the drum. I cleaned it best I could.
- I have tried using it on Mac OS X and Linux (the two systems I prefer to run), and on both, the printer is recognized and sets up okay, but the printer display mentions there is an error each and every time I try to print. This also appears even when I do any computer-agnostic tasks on the printer. Calibrating does not fix the issue (I read this advice on the web after searching for this first before posting here) as it refuses to print until the error is resolved. Resetting all settings and doing a hard reboot do nothing; I truly believe it is a hardware, not firmware, issue. However, deliberately (but not forcefully) pushing the cartidges in hard causes them to be detected -- if CMYK are the colors and _ M _ K is displayed, then pushing all 4 in causes it to detect C M Y _. Repeating this causes something like this: _ M Y K -- in essence, while that does help, it never solves the problem totally.
So summary, the problem is that even with it cleaned, and clicking + rotating the cartridges in place, 1 is always missing and I always get the same "Device is not ready" or another generic error! Secondly, the Magenta cartridge seems to be spilling out toner again, because after moving it to my garage, I checked the printer's internals and there was magenta dust again.
I've used HP printers since 1999, but never have had a color laser jet (always OfficeJet or DeskJet, and have used a B/W LaserJet a bit). Did I end up with a damaged printer, or worse yet, will the costs be more than it is worth, making it garbage? What is the solution?
Thanks, all.
I have a used HP Color LaserJet 2840 that I bought back in August from eBay, which has been sitting in my garage inoperative. It has a problem I cannot quite figure out...
- Printer was as described... everything appears to work except that it cannot print. Each time it mentions that it cannot read the cartridges and to try again.
- There is Magenta (pink-purple shade) toner dust coming out of the printer. When it shipped, this was in the packaging, and it was all over the inside of the drum. I cleaned it best I could.
- I have tried using it on Mac OS X and Linux (the two systems I prefer to run), and on both, the printer is recognized and sets up okay, but the printer display mentions there is an error each and every time I try to print. This also appears even when I do any computer-agnostic tasks on the printer. Calibrating does not fix the issue (I read this advice on the web after searching for this first before posting here) as it refuses to print until the error is resolved. Resetting all settings and doing a hard reboot do nothing; I truly believe it is a hardware, not firmware, issue. However, deliberately (but not forcefully) pushing the cartidges in hard causes them to be detected -- if CMYK are the colors and _ M _ K is displayed, then pushing all 4 in causes it to detect C M Y _. Repeating this causes something like this: _ M Y K -- in essence, while that does help, it never solves the problem totally.
So summary, the problem is that even with it cleaned, and clicking + rotating the cartridges in place, 1 is always missing and I always get the same "Device is not ready" or another generic error! Secondly, the Magenta cartridge seems to be spilling out toner again, because after moving it to my garage, I checked the printer's internals and there was magenta dust again.
I've used HP printers since 1999, but never have had a color laser jet (always OfficeJet or DeskJet, and have used a B/W LaserJet a bit). Did I end up with a damaged printer, or worse yet, will the costs be more than it is worth, making it garbage? What is the solution?
Thanks, all.