Freakels on Print

You said the device will not "print" color copies. Have you tried to make a copy of something in color?
Recommend printing out a demo page that should show all colors listed, also do a print head alignment that would show the colors too.

You should never use alcohol when cleaning this printer. If you need a solvent, use a soft, lint-free cloth dampened with water. A dry lint- free cloth is better for cleaning most parts of the printer. The Clean Drum function on the Dell 1600n is accessed from the Maintenance sub-menu. You need to press Menu on the printer repeatedly until you see Maintenance on the top line of the Display. Clean Drum should be displayed on the bottom line. Press Select twice to start the cleaning. You may need to repeat this operation several times if you see that the printed page is still streaky.

I hope this helps.

Cindy Wells

If the print rubs off the page, this means the toner is not being fused to the page. Fused......this is done by the fuser. This would have nothing to do with light print.

The dell (1600n and 1815n /1815dn) printer drivers has a toner saver mode, which can contribute to light print.

To turn Toner Save Mode off, (Windows XP) perform the following steps:

1. Click the Start button, click Settings, and then click Printer and Faxes.
   The Printers and Faxes window appears.
2. Right-click Dell Laser MFP 1600n, 1815dn, and left-click Printing Preferences.
   The Dell Laser MFP 1600n, 1815dn Printing Preferences window appears.
3. Click the Advanced button.
   The Dell Laser MFP 1600n, 1815dn Advanced Options window appears.
4. Click to highlight Toner Save.
5. Click the drop-down list and change it to Off and click OK.
6. Click OK.

One thing that you mentioned in your post "it takes the printer forever to warm up". The fuser does have to reach operational temperature in order for it to fuse the toner to the page. So it is possible that you are having fuser problems, because of the time it is taking for it to warm up. Another thing that can contribute to the warm up time is not plugging the laser printer directly into a wall outlet. This would be true for any laser printer, not just a Dell laser printer. The low voltage power supply is what works the fuser, along with sensors and other motors in the printer.

Replacing the fuser and or the low voltage power supply in this model of printer is not an easy task. If using a Dell branded toner cartridge and checking the toner saver mode does not fix the issue. Then you would be looking at more expense then the machine would possibly be worth.

Most times the PCL driver will work just fine for printing .pdf documents. Occasionally you will need to us a PS driver to print .dpf docutments. PCL was designed to work best with MS Word, Excel, etc programs and PS drivers were designed to work best with Adobe .pdf.

One way to see if you have the PS driver already installed, is to (in Windows XP) start>control panel>printers and faxes>in here look for an Icon that represents your printer that has PS in place of the PCL. If this is installed then when you go to print your docuement, choose this icon to print with.

If you do not have the PS driver already installed, try adding the printer to your system. You would do this by (Windows XP) start>control panel>printers and faxes>add a printer wizard>Next>Choose your connection(local or network)>Next>Select a printer port>Next>Install Printer Software(If you have downloaded the most recent drivers, choose have disk and navigate to where you saved it. If you have the CD, use have disk and navigate on the CD to where the PS driver is>Next>You may or may not get the next window asking you to choose whick model of printer you are installing, it varies from printer to printer. From here it is pretty straight foward, just read the wizard and click next. The last step you will need to click finish for the drivers to actually install.

As a side note, not all printers have a PS driver available.

Is the page stop at the back of the tray set correctly? If you have the stop a "click" off, rather then seeing letter size, it will see universal or A4 and say no paper, because it's looking for letter size. If it is on the network, just open a browser and go to the IP address of the printer, or print out a configuration report. That will tell you what size the drawer is reading.

If it makes verticle lines only when using the document feeder it is most likely a dirty glass strip over the scanner light bar. If it makes verticle lines in all modes (printing, flat bed scanning/copying, receiving faxes) it could be the fuser or a dirty glass over the laser where ever the laser images to a drum roller (usually a larger green roller). It is possible that this green drum roller is inside the toner - if so - replacing the toner cartridge could fix it. Maybe you could try an old used toner to see of the problem changes - if so - it is very likely that a new toner would fix your print quality issue.

Rollers may be worn out and not properly grabbing paper or a gear may be broken. You should be able to inspect by lifting cover to feeder and watching as paper is pulled through.

Clean the small glass strip on the left side of the scanner. There is probably some dirt there and will only show up when using the ADF.

You have either a piece of dust or a scratch on the scanning glass. This will show up as a line because the paper is pulled across the point.

Any difference between using the document feeder and just the flat bed?