Be Excellent To Each Other

What's causing this? There's a strip down the page where yellow toner doesn't stick. Is it a fuser problem? I've changed the toner cartridge. Why would it only affect yellow?

It's modem art!

From that pic, it looks as though other colours are affected as well?

I'm hardly the best person to give advice, but what printer is it? Is there a troubleshooting menu and/or 'self clean' mode?

It's affecting the red and green because they're mixed using the yellow (combined with Cyan and Magenta). If definately the yellow that's the problem

If only there was someone on the forum who knew how to fix this sort of thing. Looks to me like it sorta gives up for a bit then carries on again. maybe it was overheating?

Is it coated stock? How many sheets have come out like this?

Standard a4 laser paper. Anything that uses yellow is missing that strip.

Could be the fuser / fuser oil to blame then. Try taking it out and 'jiggling' it. Then put it back in again.

Whoah - can you tone down the technobabble so the layman can understand, Z?

Take the yellow toner out and see if there's a build up of old toner at the back that might be blocking that side too. The new one would be affected aswell.

Hey, don't tell me you don't know how to jiggle, sweet tits.

If non of this helps it's the Y2K bug.

Cheers Z. I'll have a jiggle in the morning.

Then I'll look at the printer

Okay, it's not the fuser if the other 3 colours are printing fine, since they'd be affected too.

This looks to me like a problem with the yellow photodeveloper. Do the photodevelopers come as seperate parts on this printer DavPaz, or are they included within the toner cartridge? Generally the photodeveloper is a shiny blue or green roller, to give you a clue.

What model printer is it, btw?

Have you tried putting it in the oven?

From memory, as I'm now halfway home, it's a hp4700. Might be a 4600. Big flap door on the front, individual everything I think

Well, I couldn't find separate photodevelopers listed for the 4700 on HP's website and it refers to the toners as 'print cartridges', so my money is on the photodevs being included a part of the toner cartridge. Also the image transfer system is a simple transfer belt, so like the fuser, it can't be that at fault as the other colours would be affected (or at least it's highly unlikely to be the transfer belt).

Long story short: faulty yellow cartridge.

Edit: take the yellow out, have a look for the shiny roller I mentioned - should be highly visible on the cartridge, though may have a flap covering it. Look for any marks. Don't touch the roller though and don't leave it uncovered in the light for too long (a few minutes will be fine) as that will definitely fuck it!

But I changed the yellow cartridge and it's still a problem.

Bloody printers. Hate the fucking things.

I was actually being serious when I asked the printer model/manufacturer and whether there is a 'self clean' and/or specific troubleshooting menu, you know. We had something similar with both our Dell colour laser and Canon bubblejet - they both ran spiffingly after running (pretty obscure) self clean type operations that I had to resort to reading the manuals to initiate in either case.

I'm guessing that the HP printer is rather better and may have more user friendly troubleshooting option as one of the screen menu choices? Even if not, a precise model no. should still yield the neccessary info via Google, or am I being naive? I do admit to being utterly shit at this, but am trying to help here.

Ah, you need to replace the yellow laser.
HTH HAND.

Sorry if I skipped your suggestion Cavey, but there's no self clean option on these beasts. They go through a 5 minute calibration before you can print though.

Kalmar, shush

Kalmar might be right, unfortunately. Try the transfer belt first though, presuming you either have a spare or can 'borrow' one from another printer. It can't be the fuser if it's only happening to one colour.

Edit: unless the photodev is a separate part of course, as it looks like a typical photodev fault. Is that shiny roller I mentioned a separate bit or part of the toner cartridge?

They have different colored lasers in them? That's awesome.

Not the best picture, but you can see the stripe down the image. It's a HP 4700n. I can't see any roller separate from the toner cartridge, there's no toner clogged anywhere and the transfer belt seems clear.

Okay, I can't really tell from the images you've posted, but you're certain only the yellow is affected?

If it is all colours, it could be the fuser. If it's only yellow, it could still be the transfer belt and your best bet is to try using the transfer belt from another 4700 (the 'n' would, I imagine, stand for 'network'), presuming you have one. Even if the transfer belt is clean, as the problem would be down to the belt having some kind of fault and not transferring the toner onto the page in that one section, and since these printers are designed to clean themselves you're unlikely to see any toner spill anywhere.

I will be honest though, it's not especially likely to be to be the belt as you'd expect a lot more yellow to be missing from the image, so don't go opening up a new one unless the existing one is reaching the end of it's life. You should be able to see it's remaining life expectancy in the menus somewhere.

If it's not that, or you can't try a belt, you're going to have to get on the phone to HP. When you start seeing voids on one colour like this, it's usually either going to be a dodgy photodeveloper (very likely, but you've already ruled that out by changing the toner) or a dodgy printhead (the laser/LED array - in this case, the yellow one). Hope it's still under warranty as replacement printheads are expensive and require a trained engineer to fix.

Edit: looking at the manual, the HP 4700 seems to use an almost identical engine to the Lexmark C5xx series. A little secret in the industry is that different kinds of printer are manufactured by one or two companies with all the other companies licensing the technology and just making their own plastic case, firmware and drivers to go around it. How do you find it? I used to find the Lexmark C5xx series to be a bit shit, personally.

Here's a better picture. I buggered up the magenta, but it's definitely only the yellow affected.

The printer is WAAAAY out of warranty and I never wanted the damn thing putting where it is in the first place. Fucking politics.

Throw it down the stairs.

Steal a transfer belt from another printer, give it a try. If not, and you've definitely replaced the toner and there definitely isn't a separate photodev (take the toner out - is there a very shiny metallic roller anywhere on it? Will probably be covered by a flimsy plastic flap, but should still be visible without taking it apart) - then give HP a call and prepare your boss for a potentially hefty bill.

I did notice the magenta looked a little dodgy there, but if you're absolutely sure it's only the yellow, it can't possibly be the fuser at fault.

That's because I prepared the test image myself. On the calibration page, the magenta is rock solid.

Arsebiscuits.

He wants it impregnated though.

BTW Zio, thanks for the useful advice. I'll get up to my elbows in the printer later to see if I can spot a separate roller.

Well, photodevs are usually customer replaceable parts, so if it is a different unit from the toner cartridge, it'll be somewhere easy to spot and easy to replace. My suspicion is that it's actually a part of the cartridge, since the supplies bit on the HP website doesn't list separate photodevs for this printer and it refers to the toners as 'print cartridges', which is the nomenclature Lexmark use for toners that have a photodev built-in.

Which means, if you've replaced the toner, it can't be the photodev. Which makes it look more like either a transfer belt or printhead problem.