Brother MFC-9840CDW (circa 2008) taking ages before printing

[dogbait]

I try to repair and maintain my stuff way after the manufacturer stops supporting it. Have a Brother laser which I've had for nearly 10 years now. Whilst it's been relatively trouble free, it's taking 5 mins or more to print a page.

Any ideas what part might have worn?

The printer itself reports that most of the parts have plenty of life left:

Drum Unit*
2754 pages
(% of Life Remaining)
(18.00%)

Belt Unit
10563 pages
(% of Life Remaining)
(22.00%)

Fuser Unit
65754 pages
(% of Life Remaining)
(84.00%)

Laser Unit
85754 pages
(% of Life Remaining)
(86.00%)

 

[DTN107]

I would look at the fuser first but since you already stated it has 84% life remaining makes me clueless.

How old is the fuser? If it s less than a year then perhaps try to reach out to Brother for a warranty claim on it. It might be bad? I dunno but I also have a fairly old Brother color laser in my possession and would like to know.

 

[Spartacus]

I've seen some printers do that for OS/driver reasons.

Is the print job going to the printer right away, and the printer is delaying?
Or is it that you hit print and the computer doesn't send the print job for a while?

Did this start after a move to Windows 10?


.

 

[dogbait]

I've seen some printers do that for OS/driver reasons.
Is the print job going to the printer right away, and the printer is delaying?

Thanks for the tip, it narrowed things down.

Originally I was using a Mac, with the Brother BRScript (PostScript emulation) driver. Printer starts showing 'Receiving job' instantly but takes a very long while before it actually prints.

Tried printing via Windows 10 and it was lightning fast. Printer received and printed immediately.

So I switched the driver on the Mac to the standard CUPS driver. It's immediate now but quality seems worse than the BRScript driver.

Guess I've got some researching to do...

 

[Simplyfun]

If your default print type is super fine it will slow down considerably. Also , the way that emulation driver works expanding the onboard RAM can help a lot if you're getting pauses between pages, but at the end of the day it's managing with a 300Mhz MIPS processor so don't expect miracles.

 

[FnordMan]

Thanks for the tip, it narrowed things down.

Originally I was using a Mac, with the Brother BRScript (PostScript emulation) driver. Printer starts showing 'Receiving job' instantly but takes a very long while before it actually prints.

Tried printing via Windows 10 and it was lightning fast. Printer received and printed immediately.

So I switched the driver on the Mac to the standard CUPS driver. It's immediate now but quality seems worse than the BRScript driver.

Guess I've got some researching to do...

The BRScript will do it, PostScript can be a rather complicated language to parse for cheaply made printers with underpowerd processors. (mine included) There's a very good chance the windows driver is using PCL6 mode which is much faster. Have you tried the official drivers from brother?

 

[dogbait]

Thanks for all the feedback, just an update. Updated Brother drivers on macOS Sierra resolved the quality problem. Ensuring that BRScript is active rather than PostScript has made a big difference in speed.

As an aside haven't been super happy with the quality (the odd splatter on the page) of the printer. Tore it down and found out that one of the cartridges leaks toner dust when shook slightly. I stocked up on genuine Brother laser toner cartridges over the years, not realizing that they only have a shelf life of a year or two (according to Brother). Guessing there're some sort of rubber seals to keep the toner in which wear out with age. Bought a cheapo 3rd party refurb cartridge, printer now's printing better than it has in years.