HP 5500 - smearing 11 x 17 only

[prntrfxr]

My turn,

A tech buddy of mine brought in some samples of some 11 x 17 prints from his customer's HP 5500. The images are from customer document. The top is clear and clean with all colors correct. The lower 6 inches looks like something has smeared the toner, with the color coming out the worse. Looks like mainly red and cyan. The tech did try changing from plain paper to cardstock (makes printer print slower so it gets fused with heat longer) and there was no change. I would say it could be the fuser, but 8 1/2 x 11's are good. I would say it would be cartridges, but 8 1/2 x 11's are good. Also when he prints a test page from the control panel it comes out clean, but there is no color on the lower half of HP's test pages. Demo and print quality pages once again print in the 8 1/2 x 11 area of the page.

I dont know any more about what he has tried, but I'm sending him an email with a list of things I thought he should try. Namely: Try a different document, program, check driver settings as driver overrides control panel settings, make sure all cartridges are OEM or Reman. No mixing and matching cartridges, try new cartridges, try calibration, try new transfer belt and etc...

What I want to know is anyone else had this problem? and what fixed it? Does anyone have any suggestions other than what I've posted?

[Big Al]

Some further questions that might shed some light on this one:
- Is this a new problem? Did the printer work correctly in the past when printing this job?
- Has there been a change in the software application used to print this job?
- Any way to send this job to another HP 5550?
- What is the toner level in the cartridges?

Please let us know what you find!

Al

[cs_steve]

My two cents would be to try a different driver ...
try several calibrations after that ...
either faulty formatter, or DC controller ...

[woodss]

I think it could be those above my post, but could it be the fuser unit or the gear train since the paper thats causing the problem is larger.

Does the problem occur with letter/A4 paper?

I have a 5500dtn myself, and I havent tried A3 paper on it yet.

If mine has a problem like this, I would like to have this thread find a soultion to this problem.

[MichaelTech]

Howdy all. Had this same thing, and it took forever to get the right answers from HP. The issue is with the fuser drive motor assy. A new drive fixed it, but it was a new unit in the first place. We got up to 3rd tier support before this was resolved. The whole idea of paying for tech support unless under warranty is a rip-off. You have to pay each time even if they did not help with a fix. They want to sell parts, not help you fix it right the first time.
There, Im through with that rant, and I do not call HP much anymore.
We are selling other products to our customers.:cool:

[prntrfxr]

thanks very much. :D