Be Still My Brother (Printer)
May 25, 2024 5:47 PM Subscribe
My Brother printer (MFC-J875DW) is making a brief whirring noise when it is otherwise at rest. The problem is that it is now doing this very often (a couple times per hour) and it is very annoying. I think the sound is probably an automatic purge of the print head. Replacing all of the ink cartridges did not fix it. Customer support said it is an automatic feature and just shrugged. Can I do anything or do I need a new printer?
I've twice "fixed" inkjet printers by ensuring they were properly horizontal on a hard, firm surface. One printer was on a thick tablecloth and the other on a pile of papers. Once stable, both printers stopped misbehaving.
Maybe not your case, but worth mentioning.
posted by kandinski at 6:23 PM on May 25
Maybe not your case, but worth mentioning.
posted by kandinski at 6:23 PM on May 25
You could potentially unplug it when not in use or plug it in to a power strip with an on/off switch.
posted by Reverend John at 6:47 PM on May 25 [2 favorites]
posted by Reverend John at 6:47 PM on May 25 [2 favorites]
As a former Brother technician, if the thing is printing/scanning properly and not showing any error on the screen then support is pretty helpless. I can tell you there's nothing in the service manual for this.
Is it happening multiple times without you doing any printing happening in between?
I've actually got the same printer, and what this sounds like is the clearing of the lines that the printer does in order to keep the lines from gumming up, it basically vacuums up the excess ink left in the lines after a print into the internal waste container. I've never really paid attention to it, but I alsodon't keep the printer anywhere near my desk.
The only thing I can think of would be to do a manual purge, but frankly, that's most likely just going to siphon a bunch of perfectly good ink straight into the waste unit. Still, if you want to try that, send me a MeFi Mail and I can give you directions.
posted by jjb at 9:01 PM on May 25 [2 favorites]
Is it happening multiple times without you doing any printing happening in between?
I've actually got the same printer, and what this sounds like is the clearing of the lines that the printer does in order to keep the lines from gumming up, it basically vacuums up the excess ink left in the lines after a print into the internal waste container. I've never really paid attention to it, but I alsodon't keep the printer anywhere near my desk.
The only thing I can think of would be to do a manual purge, but frankly, that's most likely just going to siphon a bunch of perfectly good ink straight into the waste unit. Still, if you want to try that, send me a MeFi Mail and I can give you directions.
posted by jjb at 9:01 PM on May 25 [2 favorites]
I have a J480DW of similar vintage, and it only does the whirling once a day when it pressurizes the ink reservoirs as a test. If yours is doing it couple times an hour, I suspect it may not be long of this world.
posted by kschang at 5:35 PM on May 26
posted by kschang at 5:35 PM on May 26
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If you get mad enough, maybe make a video showing the printer and including the whirring noise, repeat that the number of times it would happen in a day with a short gap between each instance, and send that to Brother so they can _experience_ how annoying it is. And also maybe post it to YouTube because it's probably going to sound kind of cool if I'm not trying to work at the same time.
posted by amtho at 6:12 PM on May 25 [1 favorite]