My printer is about 5 years old and began printing incessantly after I did my usual "print document"

[CTyankee]

command. I finally stopped it by opening the paper tray.

Is this a signal of a dying printer?

[rickford66]

1. Amazing. You got a printer to last about 5 years !!!

[CTyankee]

2. Oh, I dunno, how long can we expect it to last?

[Timewas]

6. They do

At least some do, I have a Brother Laser that is well over 5 years old

[SheltieLover]

7. I've had my brother laset for a few yrs

Love it!

[viva la]

8. Mine is 10 years old

Hasn't worked wirelessly for years though.

[lastlib]

19. My HP LaserJet is 16 yrs old.

It doesn't get a lot of use, tho. 10 pages a week, maybe. But its days are numbered.

[dchill]

3. What was it printing?

[CTyankee]

10. Pages of text of my book on art. I don't remember ever printing the whole damn book, so why would

it do that?

[Big Blue Marble]

4. Check for firmware and driver software updates.

Five years is good for a home printer and new ones are not that expensive.

[canetoad]

5. Not necessarily dying

When you say 'Print incessantly' - for how long did it go on? Could you read the printout? Was it possibly a document left in the print queue from a previous failed printing?

Turn it off, unplug for ten minutes then try again. Print a single page of black & white text and see how you go.

[Nictuku]

9. Clear the print queue before testing

Suggestion:

If it keeps printing gobblygook, it might be trying to print a corrupted print job. Delete all entries in the print queue before trying to print a test page so you know it is not continuing the previous job.

[CTyankee]

12. Thanks. I might as well...

[CTyankee]

13. I dunno how long...I had to stop it. Funny thing: the type was much smaller than usual.

[wcmagumba]

11. I have a Canon Inkjet printer about 15 (not kidding) years old..

Still kind of worked with a direct usb connection (no wireless) until about a year ago. I don't print much so amazing the old thing worked at all. I bought a new Brother laser printer/scanner which I'm so so happy with, works wireless with my linux Mint machines, Linux Gallium machines and Windows too...The Canon is still in my closet, guess I should recycle the darn thing...

[Grasswire2]

15. I don't think you can recycle.

In my experience, the only place dead printers can go is to the dump. And I've had several over the past ten years.

[rokar]

17. recycling printers

In Houston, where I live, and in most large cities, there are companies that will take your old printer and recycle it. I have taken printers and computers to the one in Houston, and my company uses them to recycle unusable electronic equipment. Check online, there may be one in your city.

[AllaN01Bear]

14. the thing is eventually the ink source drys up and u cant print . gone r the days

where one could buy generic printer ink cartridges . on edit: i stand corrected , the generic printer cartridge business is still going strong.

[canetoad]

16. There's a trick to clearing

Dried up printheads; diabetic syringe (15c) and a drop of iso alcohol. You just need to work out where to squirt it on your particular printer.

[AllaN01Bear]

18. thanks for your information

i was volunteering for a museum and to extend the life of printers, the supervisor would shake the printer. dont know why , but, that seemed to extend things.

[CTyankee]

20. Not this printer! I can't even lift it from the desk.

[LPBBEAR]

21. No, not dying.

If the printer was printing its not dying.

If what was printing was readable text you somehow accidentally triggered a print job. Go into your systems print manager and stop/cancel the job.

If what was printing was a bunch of weird looking gibberish the software print driver glitched. Again stop/cancel the print job in the print manager and in this case restart your computer after you've done that.