Laserjet Pro 400 M451DN NO MAGENTA

[Elgato]

I have a Laserjet Pro 400 Color M451DN with less than 1000 copies on it. Everything works perfectly except it will not print Magenta.

The Magenta is genuine HP 305A (CE413a). On the supplies status it shows 100% but the status bar is white. All the other colors are fine.

I have tried a different cartridge with the same results.

I have restored defaults and performed hard reset.

I have upgraded the firmware to 20150126

This printer is like new. Any ideas?

Thank You

[Reskape]

Hello @Elgato 

I guess that the first details we want to confirm its if the magenta toner its working ok 

Do the following on the right side of the printer you will find a little hole insert a paper click and press the bottom that you feel on the inside (make sure that the printer has all 4 toner, paper and is on ready state), this is call  '' 'Engine test' its supposed to have lines from top to bottom on each color , if this prints it means that the toner its working ok 

If it does print ok then try to print a demo page from the reports menu to confirm it does process images fine 

If by this point everything its printing ok I will suggest changing the driver on the PC since the unit it self seems to be working ok 

In the other hand what happens if the engine test shows no magenta color 

You could perform the following test a little complicated but let me see if I can make this simple

Take out the magenta toner 

Take a look on the left side of the toner you will notice 3 contacts there 2 gold ones that are attached to a white plastic piece and one metalic color to the right of those two

What you want to do with the metalic one fee its cover that contact with a littel piece of paper and some tape over the paper so it doesnt move since the idea its to replace the toner back in but with  that contact covered 

Once you do that then you can go ahead and send a test page to the unit the resullt should be the page that you requested but all the background on that page should be magenta , this proves that the correct voltage is getting to the unit and mostly the reason will be the toner and this point you want to try another toner and see if you get the same results 

[Elgato]

Thank you for the suggestions.

When clicking the button the output is a fine horizontal blue line and a black line repeating the length of the page. No yellow or magenta.

For the second test I printed a supplies status sheet with the contact covered on the Magenta. Yes, the entire background printed Magenta. Through the magenta background you can see the black, blue and yellow status bars.

Thank You

[Elgato]

It may be a coincidence but the problem appears to have started following the 20150126 FW upgrade. Is there any way to get older FW for these?

Thanks again.

[Reskape]

When you pressed the button on the side you were suppposed to get the lines on all 4 colors and not only 3 as you are telling since that it's like the printer itselft rotating the motor and engine to process that test page not a good indication that you didnt see all 4 colors on the other hand when you covered the contact and got the magenta pages that proves that the correct voltage is getting to the toner so its not a voltage issue on the unit . I may suggest a different toner if available 

As far as the downgrade I will not suggest doing one it may seem like the solution but may other things can be damage when doing a downgrade since the unit sometimes doest like the downgrade and you may ended up with a worst problem than you already have 

[Elgato]

When pressing the button on the side it prints perfect horizontal lines of Black and Blue. It does not print Yellow or Magenta.

The supplies status page prints the Black, Cyan and Yellow bars but not Magenta.

The tape test covers the sheet in Magenta perfectly.

A different Magenta cartridge produces the same results.

Any suggestions on how to proceed? Is there a specific part that causes this?

The printer has less than 1000 total prints on it and is like new inside and out. It would be a shame to scrap it.

Given that it is useless like this, why not try another FW?

Thank You

[Elgato]

Does anyone have anything to add?

Thanks

[Elgato]

Nobody has the heart to tell me that my HP with under 1000 prints is trash?

Is it possible to clean the mirrors on these?

Thanks

[davidzuts]

It willl not be the lens as even if dusted over you would still get some magenta to shine thru.  Odds are the issue is high voltage contacts or the high voltage ps.  There is not much you can do with this low end color printer.  Even removing the laser/scanner is not covered in the service manual and the part is not available from hp.  There is also a slim possibilty that the intermediate transfer roller inside the transfer belt for the magenta is having issues so no magenta is transferred to the belt for transfer to the paper.

[Elgato]

Thanks.

It does print an excellent full Magenta page when the tape is placed on the toner contact.

I just noticed these two messages in the error log.

Magenta Density Range Error

Color plane registration sensor error

I know these things are a nightmare. I would have no reservations about trashing it except for the condition and low prints.

Thanks again.