Hello,

Just seeing if y'all might have some insight to a strange problem I've started having with one of our printers. This printer is just over a year old, purchased in Jan 2011. It is a moderately heavy printing area on the factory production floor. (crud abounds)

I first got the call that the printer had a 51.10 error on the screen and had stopped. The error indicates that the printer has "lost beam detection". I pulled the toner, turned the printer off, pulled the power plug for a bit, zipped it back up and it started working for a while. We were able to limp along with this issue popping up, then being resolved as above for about a day and a half. I saw a post somewhere that seemed to indicate that it could be related to the toner cartridge. So I've put a new cartridge in it. These are remanufactured cartridges, not HP branded new; though the printer does report it as "HP genuine".

The posts I've seen indicate that the laser unit needs to be replaced. I'm supposing that is no trivial operation.(?) What I'd like to know is what might be other potential causes or contributors, since we were able to limp along for a while, as above? I know HP is pretty snotty about 3rd party toner, and understandably. Might that have been an issue?

Thanks