Loud clicking sound

We had the same problem, with a slightly different solution... it turned out in our case that the new toner cartridge's internal drum was too stiff, so the printer was trying to turn the toner spindle and failing, resulting in the clicking noise. Our solution was to manually turn the black center gear by hand a few times, and in doing so loosen the drum up a little, so that the printer could turn it. We put it back into the printer, and voila! No more clicking noise.
Thanks to whitehorse1 for his (or her) solution... though it wasn't the exact same problem for us, it was what put us on the right track. :)

Mine did this after I replaced a toner cartridge (the round ones). Here's what causes the loud clicking:
Some (most?) replacement ink cartridges have a little square chip -- like a mini circuit board -- on them which gives the printer information about how full they are. This is located on the insertion end, right next to the round black thing with the little gears on it.
For the cartridge to go in all the way, and allow the gears to properly "seat," the square "circuit board" needs to "float" just a little on the spongy thing it's attached to. So when you push the cartridge in FIRMLY, the gears seat, and the "circuit board" will end up getting pushed in about 1/16 of an inch.
I think what happens in some cases (at least with mine) is some cheap replacement cartridges don't let the "circuit board" push in at all, which means the gears don't quite seat properly, and, as they are trying to connect on the printer's gear receivers, they are constantly connecting and disconnecting, causing that loud clicking noise.
On one cartridge just pushing in the "circuit board" really hard freed it up and allowed it to "float" (be pushed in little when the cartridge was then inserted). In another case, I ended up getting a butterknife and prying off the circuit board (breaking the plastic or glue seal that was holding it) then setting back in, on top of the little spongy sticky thing it's supposed to float on.
In both cases, the cartridges were then able to go in all the way, and the clicking noise stopped.
Hope this helps!
;-)

Re: Samsung CLP-300 red light on; Clicking noises
Mon 12/08/2008 3:36 pm

Elsewhere on this site I described a "solution" for CLP-300 Status-always-red problem, which is to somehow defeat the microswitch sensor actuated by the plastic thing on the upper-right-hand corner of the front cover. Subsequent hackery produced a small bungee cord + rope + a piece of wood; you wrap it around the outside of the printer, put the piece of the wood on the right -- over the stupid sensor -- and that seems to work! So I could print with loud clicking noises! ... *And* the same solution works with my stupid washing machine in the basement (broken latch)....

*Then* I followed "brookjones" advice and went in there and twisted the stupid gear on the black toner cartridge -- which *successfully stopped the clicking*! Thanx loads (I tried to register my approval with the little icons but I think I failed)....

I checked the gears on the *other* color cartridges, and they definitely moved with much more ease. The b&w cartridge was pretty stuck -- but turnable when I tried hard. I would suggest trying one of the other cartridges, which probably turn easier, so you can get a feel and see how hard and which direction they want to turn in.

-- good luck

j.g. owen * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
web: http://owenlabs.home.att.net/
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