when receiving faxes getting dark grainy pages

[Rich7710]

When recieving faxes very grainy and dark

[John_Getzke]

Your toner cartridge may be defective.  Do you notice any problems with normal print or copy jobs?  If so then swap the cartridge.

If the cartridge seems fine then the next thing to try is resetting the defaults on the printer.  This would remove any temporary configuration settings such as brightness that you may have accidentally set on the printer.

After that you will want to test and see if all faxes are appearing poorly or only a few.  If only a few then it may be more of a sender issue on the sending fax machines side than on yours.  You could try to ask one of your fax senders to try temporarily sending the fax message to a free eFax vendor.  Then review the digital fax message to see if what they recieved is consistent with your printer or not.  If so then there is more evidence to suggest the problem is on the senders side.

[atharva_gp]

@Rich7710,

Thanks for reaching out to the HP Support community!

Let's try these steps to improve fax quality:

Step 1: Power Reset

• Make sure this printer is plugged into a direct wall, not a surge protector.
• Turn the printer on.
• Wait until the printer is idle and silent before you continue.
• With the printer turned on, disconnect the power cord from the rear of the printer.
• Unplug the power cord from the wall outlet. Wait at least 60 seconds
• Plug the power cord back into the wall outlet.
• Reconnect the power cord to the rear of the printer.
• Turn on the printer, if it does not automatically turn on.

Step 2: Change the settings on the Fax/Printer

• Change the fax speed
  • Higher fax speeds can result in lower fax quality.
  • To lower the fax speed, from the printer control panel go to Set up > Fax Set up > Advanced Fax Set Up > Fax Speed > Slow
  • Send or receive a fax. If the issue persists, continue to the next step.

• Change the Error Correction Mode setting

  • Error Correction Mode (ECM) prevents loss of data due to poor phone lines by detecting errors that occur during transmission and automatically requesting retransmission of the erroneous portion. Phone charges are unaffected, or might even be reduced, on good phone lines. Depending on the age and quality of the phone lines, ECM can improve fax quality or cause data loss. The default setting is On.

  • To turn change the ECM setting, from the printer control panel, go to Set up > Services > Error Correction > Turn it off.

  • If the issue persists, continue to the next step.

Step 3: Update the printer Firmware

• Refer to this link to update the printer firmware

To check the quality of faxes you receive, use the HP Test Fax Service (only in the US).

Send a one page black and white text fax to 1-888-hpfaxme (1-888-473-2963).

When your fax is received by the HP Test Fax Service, it sends a return fax within five minutes that you can use to check for quality issues.

Let me know if this helps. 

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