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Dishonest Printer Toner Cartridges

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

We’ve all been there.  You open up a document, an e-mail, or a PDF and click print, and then the printer starts beeping.  In my case, it’s a loud “beep beep beep beep beep”, five in succession.  I could have sworn that I just printed yesterday and the page looked normal, it wasn’t grey or faded.  We have a monochrome (black and white, not color) laser printer and it works wonderfully and has for years.  This model, the MFC-7840W, I discovered after researching printers for a long time before purchase.

In some cases, the low toner warning is valid.  In other cases, it is not!  If you receive the error “Toner Life End”, know that there still may be plenty of powder left in that toner cartridge.  This is because the printer doesn’t actually see or measure how much toner is remaining, rather it keeps a tally of how many pages were printed and estimates how much toner was used.  Here’s how to reset the laser toner cartridge on that Brother MFC-7840W of yours:

  • Open the front door and remove the toner from the printer
  • Press Clear/Back button
    • When prompted “Replace Drum?” 1 = Yes, 2 = No, do not type 1 or 2.
    • Rather, type 00 (that’s double zero) on the key pad, and the printer should respond with “Accepted”
  • Close the front door after reinserting the toner
  • Give the printer a minute, then try printing again.  You should be able to print normally now!

Voila!

by:  Jeffrey Atto

(Note:  Special Thanks to http://blog.tonergreen.com/ for educating us on this topic years ago)

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