Laserjet 1300 Feeding Paper Too Fast

[jcahow]

I own two older very similar Laserjet networked printers (models 1200 and 1300) which see occasional use.  I realize these are old printers but they have been working fine up to this point so I saw no need to replace them.

Anyways I moved the 1300 from one location in a room to another and reattached the power and network cables.  It had been working fine up to that time.  Now all of a sudden it is having paper path problems.  It prints just fine with a single sheet in the tray like printing out the specification sheet.  If I try to print something with more that one sheet in the paper tray the printer is feeding in new sheets to early and causing the paper to jam.

In trying to figure out what is going on I compared the 1300 and 1200 printers as they are almost identical and use the same paper tray mechanism.  Inside the printer paper tray area at the back there is an area that folds up when a new page needs to be started, this causes the paper roller above to grab a new sheet.  On the 1200 this flap is operating correctly, the 1300 now has this flap running way to often so it is feeding in new sheets before the prior sheet is finished.

If I print a single sheet of paper on the 1200 this flap area activates only once if I print the same single sheet on the 1300 now it activates this flap area five times (which will cause paper path problems if more paper was in the tray).  You can hear the printer now activating this flap area way to often which it did not use to do.

The flap paper feed area looks like it is pushed up from the bottom in an area of the printer (below rear access door) that is not normally user accessible.

This problem is not software related as I can reproduce it by just printing the built in specification sheet (with multiple sheets in the paper tray) without even having the printed connected to anything.  I am unclear if some part has failed inside or how this flap (new page feed) mechanism is triggered.  There must be a powered mechanism inside which causes this flap to activate and for some reason it is triggering way more than it should now.

Any ideas if this problem is correctable as I hate to recycle the printer when it still prints fine but it is worthless if you have to feed it one page at a time so they do not jam?

[Valsimot]

Sticky paper pickup solenoid. You will need to remove back cover, and right side cover to fix this, it's a 5-10 minute job.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XEzMNJV8vw 

[Repairatrooper]

If the pickup is being activated multiple times then likely the solenoid for the pickup assembly is sticking. The other possibility is that the pickup roller is worn and is not feeding the paper on the first rotation and so makes another rotation.