A good portion of the calls we take get solved on the phone in under ten minutes. Here is what we walk people through, so you can try it first.
Nothing below requires tools or voids anything.
The three that are usually you, not the machine
Paper jams
Almost always paper, not mechanism. Static sticks sheets together and humidity makes them curl.
Try: Fan the stack before loading. Set the tray guides snug but not tight. Do not fill past the line. Store paper flat and closed somewhere dry, an open ream left out over a humid weekend is a week of jams.
Clearing one: Follow the path the machine marks and pull slowly in the direction the paper was already moving. Check carefully for torn fragments; a scrap sitting against a sensor causes the next three jams. Nothing sharp, ever.
Stop if: the same tray jams repeatedly. That is a worn feed roller and it needs a technician.
Lines or streaks down every page
Not a mechanical failure. Dirt.
Try: A lint-free cloth with a little glass cleaner or isopropyl alcohol applied to the cloth, not sprayed at the machine. Clean the main glass, then the narrow strip of glass alongside it that the document feeder scans through. That strip is the culprit almost every time, a speck on it puts an identical line down every page.
Stop if: the line survives a proper cleaning, or it appears on prints sent from a computer rather than copies. That is internal.
Faded, patchy or ghosting output
Usually toner distribution or a drum reaching end of life.
Try: Remove the toner cartridge and rock it gently side to side to redistribute the powder, then reseat it. Check that any orange shipping tape came off a recently installed cartridge.
Stop if: it comes back within a few hundred pages. That is a consumable at the end of its life, not a fix.
When to stop and call
- Error codes that return after a full power cycle
- Grinding, scraping or knocking, often a gear or a failing fuser, and running it makes it worse
- Burning smells. Power it down.
- Copies fine, will not print from the network, usually a driver or IP conflict, and often solvable remotely
- Repeated jams in the same location after you have ruled out the paper
What a service call costs
For machines you own, whatever brand and whether or not we sold it:
- Service call: flat $125 to 250 per machine, depending on equipment and location. Covers a technician attending, diagnosing and carrying out the repair.
- Parts: billed at cost. What we pay, no markup.
No contract required. We service Canon, Xerox, Ricoh, Konica Minolta, Kyocera, Sharp, HP, Lexmark, Toshiba and most other business equipment, current and discontinued alike.
On parts for older machines we will be straight with you before you pay for a visit rather than after. Availability thins on discontinued models, and if a machine has genuinely reached the end, we will tell you that too, along with what replacing it would cost.
Machines we lease are not on this pricing at all. Every call, every part and all labor sits inside the flat monthly rate, with no per-visit charge and no limit on how often you call.
If you are calling us about the third fault this year
The machine is telling you something. Three repair bills is roughly a lease payment, and an aging copier that fails regularly costs more in lost hours than in parts.
Three honest options: keep paying per visit, which is genuinely cheap if faults are rare; put it on a service agreement for one predictable figure; or replace it. A newer machine on a flat monthly rate, cancellable on thirty days' notice, often costs less than keeping the old one alive. We will also take the old one in trade.
Before you call
Have the make, model and what it is actually doing. If we can talk you through it, we will, and that costs you nothing.
Book a Service Call → or call 866-938-2679.