printer arrrghh ...

By basd on Apr 25, 2010 | In -arghhh!!

Ok, so the Lexmark printer would not feed after about 4,000 copies, so I bought a brother mfc-8890 because my Brother printers have always run forever. I have a color mfc 9840 which works well, but being color it is always out of expensive toner. The lexmark was running nearly .03 per page, whereas I expect I can get the cost down on the brother 8890 to $.015 or so. The 9840 runs about $.022 or so. Ah, but I forgot ...

...

I traded in a brother 8840 which had been pretty good, but needed a new drum and had other issues, so I felt it was better to buy a new machine. Of course, I wasted an entire brand-new, unopened toner -- there's a $120 loss! This isn't going well. And, what I overlooked is that the 8840 did not work so well with linux. Some docs just simply lock up the software. Don't have any idea what the problem is. But, the 9840 doesn't have that problem, so I assumed the 8890, being a newer model would be ok.

Wrong.

I had to print out documents in a hurry. 8890 kept locking up. Also, it's pretty fast (rated 32 ppm) once it gets moving, but for some reason there is a real delay before the first page prints. Whereas the lexmark starts spitting out printed pages the instant I click "print." Why can't I have brother's reliability and lexmark's software?

I had been intending to trash the lexmark, but as it was still hooked up and the brother was locking up, I started printing on the lexmark. Big question -- can I work around the printing issue on the brother faster than I can unjam the misfeeds on the lexmark? Yikes, what a mess and I'm probably $800 down on all this with no satisfactory solution. I would have been better off to buy another 9840, or something I don't even know what it is, but works better.

Why can't anything ever work???