Dear Folks, My colour laser is probably my most "valuable" and needed tool, next to my notebook. The black toner cartridge ran out and I replaced it. From that point on, the printing is very faded, gray. Certainly not the way I can send out my newsletter. I have tried two other cartridges and it makes no difference. I do not get black, I get light gray. The drum imaging kit was replaced a couple of months ago and it's working fine. My only problem is that since I changed black toner today, I don't get "black" printing. Ideas??? Please?? Thank you.

Well there are few tests you could run to make sure it's not the printer.

1. You said you already tried different print cartridges and it didn't make a difference.

2. Have you tried printing anything else? Like the windows test page? Does that come out gray as well? The reason I suggest this is because sometimes when printing a document you can set the printer settings to always print in "Draft" mode. This mode allows the printer to conserve the ink which make black look faded or gray. If you can make sure the printer settings are set to "Normal" or "High Quality" then test.

3. Also are you buying the printer cartridges from the same vendor? What I mean is that sometimes different vendors have different quality of printer cartridges. Some sell re-use/re-furbished print cartridges for a much lower price, and some sell OEM (original equipment manufacturer) for "an arm and a leg". So make sure you have a good quality print cartridges.

Hope this helps

P.S In the future you should let us know what make and model your printer is, this will help us narrow down the issue, or if we have had this issue happen to us we can let you know.