can I, should I ressuscitate my dead printer ?

December 26, 2007 6:28 AM

can I, should I ressuscitate my dead printer ?

I own a Brother HL-2040 that looks like it's totallybricked. There is absolutely no sign of life coming out of it. Not a light, not a motor noise... nothing. I've used two different power wire without success.

Since printers are cheap (and/because toner is expensive) the logical move would be to buy a brand new one but I wanted to see if the hive has a better idea.

Also, should I buy a new one, is it better to go with the first-hand market or is the second market/eBay thing a better idea ?

posted by Baud to computers & internet (8 comments total)

Checked the circuit breaker/outlet?
posted by evil holiday magic at 8:36 AM on December 26, 2007

Unless it's an easy fix, I consider printers nearly disposable these days. (My last one lived for many years, actually, but when its print head started acting up I decided to buy a new printer rather than spend $100 on the new print head.)

My only rules are to buy a model with a high customer rating, and that uses as cheap ink/toner as I can find. (HP, for instance, makes insanely cheap printers but insanely expensive ink. No go for me. I'm usually a Canon girl.) I like purchasing the printer new, but I buy 3rd party ink.
posted by iguanapolitico at 9:15 AM on December 26, 2007

The only think I can think of is sometimes there are switches that don't allow printers to power up unless all doors are shut, and the toner is inserted correctly. If opening and closing all covers doesn't shock it into action, you're probably out of luck. This printer is still sold - is there a chance it's still under warranty?

And for a replacement I'd go new. Check the deal sites (fatwallet, techbargains, etc.) before you buy because these often go on sale.
posted by SteveInMaine at 9:28 AM on December 26, 2007

In addition to trying a different outlet (mentioned above), see if there is a user serviceable fuse inside of the printer. You might need the user manual to flip to the troubleshooting section.

You can almost consider printers disposable if you're not picky. Our old Samsung ML-6060 laser printer bricked recently, picked up a relatively inexpensive HP inkjet printer/scanner at Costco to replace it. The biggest annoyance we found is it didn't work well with the paper that worked perfectly well with the laser printer. If you got the ink on the paper slightly wet and the ink would just come right out of the paper and onto your finger as if it weren't bound to the paper at all. This was a deal killer for my wife, but convinced her to try paper made by HP for their inkjet line -- that seemed to fix it for the most part.
posted by dereisbaer at 9:28 AM on December 26, 2007

Note to self : next time you' re about to burn a week of askmefi credit, look if there is a power switch. The printer was very quiet... because it was on "off". It's back to life. I keep your advices for my next printer problems.
posted by Baud at 10:13 AM on December 26, 2007

That's probably worth fixing then... ;-)
posted by Naberius at 2:36 PM on December 26, 2007

Well, there's yer problem.
posted by evil holiday magic at 2:33 AM on December 27, 2007

I was going to guess fuse, myself. For the benefit of posterity, I have seen the fuse blow over a short in the power cord. I used to have an Okidata that had three of them, all hard to find.
posted by unrepentanthippie at 1:55 PM on December 28, 2007