"Replace Drum" Brother Laser Fax

November 14, 2015 5:04 PM

Hi Hive: Our "Brother" laser Fax (Intelifax 2840) is giving us a "replace drum" message but fax quality is still quite good. Can we wait until the quality diminishes before we replace the drum, or will we harm the machine by waiting (which is what Office Depot told us). Thanks!
posted by Lylo to Technology (6 answers total)

Best answer: I work in a medical office so we get/send maybe a hundred faxes a day. We have a Brother fax/printer combo unit and to be perfectly honest I've never noticed the "replace drum" messages to be related to anything at all. Often it'll continue to ask for a new drum when we just put one in.

We often just ignore it until someone makes an issue of it, and haven't noticed any problems.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 5:25 PM on November 14, 2015

Best answer: I've had a Brother multifunction machine for years and within the first year I got a message about the drum needing to be replaced soon. I bought a replacement and I still have it in-box five years later in case of imminent failure. I'd ignore the message until you have a performance issue. My machine is fine and going strong.
posted by quince at 6:04 PM on November 14, 2015

Best answer: From memory the "replace drum" message on similar Brothers is based purely on page count stored in the printer's memory, not any sort of evaluation of the drum state (or an electronic/mechanical counter built into the drum like the toner carts have).

You should be able to reset the counter by following the last few steps of the drum replacement instructions - something like press Option, 1, 'Drum Replaced?' -> 'Yes'
posted by Pinback at 6:34 PM on November 14, 2015

Best answer: On fancier equipment, they'd have a point. On that one, meh. That said, if it's going to bug you, Amazon has a non-OEM replacement that at least doesn't cost almost as much as a new machine.
posted by teremala at 7:32 PM on November 14, 2015

Best answer: Just follow the drum reset instructions, and ignore it until the prints start looking smudgy.
posted by gregr at 7:50 PM on November 14, 2015 [2 favorites]

Mine started telling me that in the fall of 2013. It's still using the same drum, and the print quality is still fine. YMMV but I haven't broken it yet.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 10:26 AM on November 16, 2015