Laserjet 5500: Bright multi-color streak zone "A" (left) and fainter Zone "F" (right).

[gessel]

I've been getting quite proununced streaks perpendicular to the direction of the print.  I see matching streaks on the cartridge drums, the ETB, and some collection of loose toner inside the printer.

I tried cleaning the OHT sensor, the static discharge comb, and the ETB (with alcohol), which didn't change anything.  No warnings on the display or web interface.  Page count is a mere 3567.  11 total errors logged (4 paper jams, the rest "printer error").

Is this indicative of bad cartridges (they are HP genuine)?, bad ETB?  Bad fuser?  All?   The cartridges still report 17% life, ITK = 97%, Fuser = 98% life. 

[Valsimot]

If the lines are on the front side ( printed) of paper then those might be toner defects.

You have an option in printer diagnostic menu to disable cartridge check. When you disable cartridge check you can remove toner ( or all toners ) and the printer will print without missing cartridge. You can also swap positions of 2 toners and printer will print, of course with mixed colours.

You can remove black ( or any other )  toner and print some pages from printers internal reports ( menu -> information -> print configuration ) to see what will happen ( print 10 pages) and you can test your printer by inserting and removing toners so you can determine which one ( or more) toner is defective.

When you get your print without defects the toner that is outside of printer is defective.

[gessel]

Thanks, I think that's a good bet, but the issue that confounds me a bit is that it is all cartridges - that is 4 toner colors are mixed in the stripe.  I posted a picture but it seems to have been removed, perhaps because the serial number is visible in the demo page.  Here's a more generic page showing the stripes.

. 

The vertical magenta stripes are an artifact of my scanner.  The very strong mutli-color stripe along the bottom (below A) is the most obvious defect, there is a less clear one at the top above the F stripe. These appear on all pages.  Cleaning the transfer belt and fuser doesn't help.

These are the original caretridges that came with the printer many, many years ago.  They worked fine for about 2,500 pages or so, they've been striping for the last 1000 or so.  They are quite old - but the duty cycle is trivial (maybe 250 pages a year).  The fact that all cartridges are acting up made me wonder if something that interacts with all colors might be at fault - the transfer belt or the fuser, but cleaning them didn't help (a mechanical or electrical defect wouldn't be cured by cleaning; they might still be at fault).

Both appear intact and fine and are certainly well below their use limits of ~120,000 pages each.

Normally, I'd be fine with buying spare parts, but OEM cartridges alone cost more than a new CP5225dn and replacing all of the suspect consumables would cost quite a bit more than that.

[Valsimot]

Load sheet of paper in tray1.

Send one colour page to be printed. When printer starts to print paper from tray 1 will go into a printer. When you see that the bottom edge of the paper has entered the printer open top cover, a printer will stop immediately.

Open the front door and on the transfer belt, you will see your paper. Examine the green drum on each toner do they have those lines on them that are transferred on the printed side of the paper.

[gessel]

Took a bit of time to get the image (travel) but attached.  Yes, each green drum has a stripe.  It is also on the transfer belt.

[JonesTayTech]

I am having a similar issue. Did you get this resolved?

[gessel · Accepted solution]

Yeah, I didn't want to risk a full OEM price if the fuser etc. needed service, so I bought remanufactured cartridges from LCL, $299.59 and all is well.  The ancient monolith continues operating well.

[Repairatrooper]

We have seen this issue with non-HP TONERS when one of the labels on the shutter is not glued properly and sticks out just enough to scrape toner off the belt and redeposit it. 

[gessel]

The fault was with the OEM cartridges.  The non-OEM cartridges work perfectly.  YMMV