laserjet 4 - toner smear on edge of paper 3/8" wide

[Tim-R1]

Thank you for your help in advance. My faithful HP Laserjet 4 is a bit ill.

I am getting a toner smear (not full density black, but rather a gray density fairly uniform except for a angled darker gray line every 2" in this 3/8" band) on the edge of each page printed, left side. It is 3/8" wide.

When I remove the toner cartridge and pull back to drum cover making the green drum visible, I see toner on that edge of the drum as well. I can wipe it off with a lint-free cloth and reinstall the cartridge and the problem still exists although the drum does not appear damaged or scratched in any manner.

I just installed this new cartridge. However I bought it on eBay. It was new, still sealed in the plastic bag, but I don't know how old it is. From reading my user manual I learned that a cartridge has a 2.5 year shelf life.

Could the cartridge be too old and cause this problem, or is my fuser going bad?

All advise is appreciated.

[SHThompson · Accepted solution]

It's easy to determine whether it's the cartridge or the fuser.

Put paper in Tray 1 and print a test page. When the test page is almost all the way in the printer pop open the toner access door. Now to remove the toner cartridge and look at the page inside the printer and if you see the defect the cartridge is the problem.

Cartridge shelf life is often longer than three years but there are some pretty old cartridges for that machine out there, from what you've said so far it sounds like you probably have a defective cartridge.

[Tim-R1]

The recommendation was easy and quick to implement.  It identified the issue as a bad cartridge.

Thanks so much for your assistance and fast reply. 

[SHThompson]

For future reference when the fuser fails in that machine it normally starts putting marks down the center of the page.