All Narfed Up photography and words by Bryan Villarin

I cleaned the laser scanner of a HP LaserJet 4250tn and it was the scariest hour of my week.

At work, one of our HP LaserJet 4250tn printers started to have a print quality problem. The print down the middle would be extremely light compared to the rest of the page.

• I tried using a different toner cartridge.
• I ran a few cleaning pages.
• I interrupted a print job before it hit the fuser to see if that was the problem, but it wasn’t.

Since the warranty ran out from HP, all they would offer is email support. However, after these troubleshooting steps, they ceased their free email tech support.

So, I called The Printer Works for tech support. After explaining what I’ve tried, they suggested I clean the laser scanner and emailed me comprehensive instructions.¹

I took my time disassembling the printer to reach the laser scanner assembly, gently cleaned it with glass cleaner and cotton swabs, and put everything back together.

Then came the moment of truth.

I plugged it back in, powered it on, ran a test page, and held my breath.

Success!

After reading Ars Technica article, “Epson wins preliminary ruling against aftermarket cartridge manufacturers,” I’m dumping my Epson Stylus Color Inkjet C84 to buy a monochrome laser printer. I’m thinking of going with a HP LaserJet 1020. (At Public Counsel, almost all of our network laser printers are HP-based. You think it swayed my decision a little?)

Epson: I’m tired of one empty color cartridge not letting me print a black and white document. I’m tired of the alignment being all screwed up, despite my numerous attempts to fix it with your software “utility”. At least other companies seem to let third-party manufacturers make ink/toner cartridges for their printers. You were still pretty cool - until now.

See you around, Epson.

On a side note, if you’ve got any suggestions about my purchasing an HP LaserJet 1020, let me know. I’m still waiting for next pay period before I buy it.

At work, we have eight printers stationed throughout the building, and each project/department has their own. I think a few people print to a different printer and can’t figure out where it went. To help them out a bit, I went through and wrote down the locations of all the printers in relation to people’s offices and which floor they’re in. Then, if I work on someone’s computer, I make the change of adding the location in their printers documents. Finally, I change the view in “Printers and Faxes” to “Details”, in addition to unchecking all the columns except for Name, Documents, Status, and Location.