Dell 1700n printer

This usually happens when the toner is running low.
Try removing the toner cartridge and shake it in a horizontal position and insert it back in the printer. This may give you a few more printed pages before you have to get a new toner cartridge.

This could be the laser unit 'window' being dirty, or contaminated with toner.

Remove the toner cartridge.
Gently "roll" it from side-to-side, to evenly distribute the toner. Do not "shake" it.

Eventually, you'll either need to buy a new toner-cartridge (either from Dell or via eBay) or find a store that refills ink-jet and ink-toner cartridges.

Have you checked the fuser?

A laser printer fuser assembly is the heating roller unit that melts and fuses the toner onto the paper. The fuser assembly is made up of a heating roller and a pressure roller.

The heating roller applies the heat to the toner on the printed page and the pressure roller presses and fuses the toner into the printed page. If it's bad and not heating properly, the print will be faint, which is what you describe. You may be able to remove and clean the fuser, but if the printer gets lots of use, it may just be worn out.

See this link for an idea of what it looks like and a price.

http://www.fastprinters.com/ProductDetails.asp?product_id=DELL-H4919

I do not work or represent this company, so shop around.

You can use refilled toner cartridges or off-brand compatible toner. The plus side to this is they are far cheaper and they do work. The down side is that they may increase wear on your printer and if they are the cause of a printer malfunction your Dell warranty is not required to fix the problem. It's a calculated risk--one which I personally take (three or four replacements of toner save enough to buy a new printer).

Maryfrancesh

Exerpt taken from Dell Laser 1100 User Manual (p30)

1 Open the front cover.
2 Pull the used toner cartridge out and lift it up and away from the printer.
3 Unpack a new toner cartridge. Hold the cartridge carefully and gently shake it from sideto-
side 5 or 6 times to distribute the toner.
4 Pull the tape to remove the protective paper.
5 Locate the cartridge slot inside the printer, one on each side.
6 Unfold the toner cartridge handle and grasp it. Insert the cartridge into the printer until
it snaps into place.
7 Close the front cover. Make sure that the cover is securely closed. If it is not firmly closed,
printing errors may occur.

PDF Manual can be found here -->
http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/1100/en/OM/OM_1100_en.pdf

The guide also contains pictures of what to do.

Andy

Nicholas -

There is no real solution to this problem that I've been able to find. And I myself have not been able to find anyone that has the service manual for this color printer.

Here is what happened with my printer. I normally use this one company for compatible toner cartridges for our office printers. I've never had any issues with their HP, Brother, Canon Phaser or Dell laser products - EVER. When I went to re-order my Dell 5100cn toners again from them - ordered 2 black and 1 each cyan, magenta and color - none of the toners worked right. When they were installed, the machine produced that 009-363 restart printer message.

Now this company has ALWAYS taken care of me. We thought maybe the chips in the toners were outdated or something compared the the recent firmware update my printer had recently had. So they shipped out a complete new order for me. But the second set of toners did the same thing. So they sent one of their Dell Certified technicians to the office - we are on a cleaning plan with them so he just looked at the Dell printer while he was there doing the other work. He could not find anything physically wrong with the first or second set of toners, but yet they would not work in my printer. He even tried going through the menu options to select "allow non-Dell toners" too - thinking that maybe the printer just wasn't liking the Dell compatibles. I never had to do this before with their Dell compatibles, but it was worth a try. But even when selecting that, the printer still produced the 009-363 restart printer message. He took the toners back with him, and left me with a set of Genuine Dell toners - just to get me through what was happening so I wasn't down a printer.

The company called me and said when the technician returned with the compatible Dell toners they'd shipped me, they installed them in their test Dell 5100cn printer and they worked fine! So it was appearing that the problem might have been my machine or something.

I searched online everywhere, and the supply company I used also spoke with Dell tech support on my behalf - but got no where with Dell as usual - their Tech Support is totally useless!

About a month goes by, and my supply company says that they received a new shipment of Dell chips that have a newer firmware than even what my printer has, and that they'd like to send their technician out again to test them out in our machine. The tech came by, installed all of the toners - and they worked!

So it definitely was something to do with the firmware that was on my printer versus the firmware that was on the chips in their toners. My printer for some reason did not like that "lot" of toners they had made using those chips. And when they produced their next lot with the new firmware chips, the printer accepted everything ok.

Since then I've used their Dell compatibles with no issues. I think it was just a fluky thing as it hasn't happened since. Overall I think you just need to find a company like mine that continuously produces new toner cartridges using new Dell chips in their toners. Once in a while you might get a fluky one like we did, but my company definitely took care of us. Just try to find a company that has a good cartridge - you don't have to keep buying the expensive Dell brand - especially when they don't even know what the problem is caused by either.

Nobody has a clue how to refill a laser cartridge with ink. :)))

OK< just kidding, here it is:

First of all, laser-cartridges have toner (a fine black powder) and not ink.
Second: There are 2 methods to refill a laser cartridge: dismounting it to get to the toner chamber (involves a lot of tehnical skill) or the melt-and-pour method (see here http://www.urefilltoner.co.uk/), but you need the melting device.

But because from your question i see you dont know a thing about refilling, better go to a refill center.

Depending on the age, there was a safety recall on this printer a couple of years ago for an overheating and possibility of fire. If I remember correctly, it was printers made in 2004 or 2005. Should be something on the web (consumer product safety).