HP Color LaserJet Pro M452 - Random Small Lines in Page Margins

[weaver4510]

Hi all,

Long time lurker, first time poster here.

I've been seeing these random half inch "dashes" on my printed pages, always in the left side margin. Even when multiple copies of the same document is printed, the positions of the dashes are never the same. These dashes are not evasive or noticable, but is not a great look for a presentation report.

I don't recall how long I've had this problem, but I don't think it was presented since the purchase date.

I'm printing from Microsoft Word, Excel, Nitro PDF, and Adobe PDF and still see these dashes.

I've updated to the newest firmware release issued in January 2019 and searched throughout these forums and could only find one or two other users who have the same experience. I did not see any concreate solutions for this problem.

The printer was purchased from Amazon 2 years ago (Nov 2017), so unfortunately is out of manufactor warranty and I didn't buy the extended.

Can anyone please suggest a solution? I'll be more than happy to report back on a success or failure for future readers to benefit from.

Below are some page samples (content of the pages removed, but I can get further samples of course).

Cheers,

[Apone]

defects like that, i'd suspect 3 things:

-toner cartridges

-fuser assembly

-transfer belt

run a print quality diagnostic page from the troubleshooting menu in the printer.  it should print a solid page of each color.  do you see the defects on one page but not another?  if so, replace that toner.  this could also be the fuser if part of the fuser film is torn or defective.  lastly, the transfer belt, which works in tandem w/ the toner cartridges, has a photo sensitive belt that can show defects if its damaged or contaminated w/ toner or debris. 

[NoodleIncident]

My issue looks the same, but there are differences that may make it a different problem. Let me know if you think I should open a new thread.

First, I only have the problem with printing PDFs, not Word. The dashes are not 0.5-inch, they're more like 0.5-cm, but the originally posted image makes me think they're probably the same size as mine. I get about 4 to 8 dashes per page. It doesn't matter what kind of PDF I print, nor if I print in color or greyscale. I ran print tests and everything came out fine.

Isn't this more likely a software/driver issue, not a hardware problem? You can't have a toner, fuser or belt issue that only affects some software. I've reinstalled (repaired) Adobe Acrobat Pro, but no luck.  The driver is up to date. I'll try printing from other PCs to the same printer and roll back the driver to see if that does anything.  Anybody else have experience with this issue?

[Repairatrooper]

Based on the random dots I would say something on the transfer belt. Pull all  the cartridges and have a look.

[weaver4510]

I accidently discovered that printing a document from my mobile device (Pixel 2) does not produce any of these lines.

Through an experiment, I printed a PDF document through the Nitro Pro pdf software which came out with the same lines in a random pattern each time the same document is printed.

I emailed myself the very same PDF and printed through my mobile device and much to my surprise, there are no lines!

This problem must be isolated to my Lenovo laptop... either the PDF software, printer driver, or something else. Either way, I found a work around solution which may not be the most convienient, but at least it's a solution to this problem.

[NoodleIncident]

Repeated post. It said it was spam and wouldn't post the first time, so I rewrote it and now I don't know how to delete the first one.

[NoodleIncident]

Hi Weaver. You're onto something with the phone test. I tried the same thing and got the same results of no dashes. Then I tried a few other tests (see below). People are wrong about it being hardware - it has to be software problem because the pattern is too obivous. Try printing as an image and see what happens. 

Tests (same PDF document for everything):

1. Lenovo, Windows 10, Acrobat Pro - Dashes

2. Lenovo, Windows 10, Word - No Dashes (same document, but in Word form)

3. Asus, Windows 8, Acrobat Pro - Dashes

4. Phone, Android - No Dashes

Next, I tried everything on my Lenovo:

1. Foxit (like Nitro), print as document - dashes

2. Foxit, print as image - no dashes

3. Acrobat Pro, print as image - no dashes

4. Tried different PDFs, some made by me, some dowloaded. All got the same results.

So, we're dealing with a print as document vs print as image issue. I think that our phones are probably both printing as an image by default. Word didn't print as crisply as the PDF did, so it's not sending the same commands to the printer, but I don't know more about that topic. Printing as an image isn't a good solution because text quality ranges from just-ok to horrible looking. I'll roll the driver back and keep you posted. 

[RufusTech]

I have the same problem, but it is RANDOM.

I have updated, brand new cartridges, run the cleaning thing (which prints perfect) but when I print a document, I get tiny pink dots spaced randomly through out and grey dashes down the margin.  It is ruining my marketing materials.  Also, this thing is incredibly finicky about what paper it likes... often the ink toner does not stick, so it ghosts and splotches like crazy, especially if I try to print high quality.  I honestly would have saved more if I'd just paid a printer... so much money, time and materials wasted.   If you can tell me how to fix it, I'd be ever so grateful... the only thing I can print and  use is shipping labels, and even those look like crap, but hey, they work. 

some of these posts didn't show up for me at first... I also use a lenovo... I'm going dig out my old hp and see if it does the same crap.  😃  Thanks

[weaver4510]

Thanks for posting.

I'm not so sure if your issue is related to mine.

Printing PDFs via Gmail or Google Drive is a work around concerning the dashs ("-") in the margin, albeit an inconvenient solution.

I did have a situation of streaks and random splashes throughout printed pages. I resolved that issue by "cleaning" the toner cartridge. Inside the cartridge there's a roller which isn't the easiest to turn. There was toner build up on the black roller which I simply wiped clean with a tissue paper, which temporary fixes the problem.

in my opinion, the best solution is to start shopping for a different printer.