The stripe that you are describing sounds like a bad drum to me. The good thing about HP toner cartridges is that they include the drum -- so a new cartridge = new drum. I'd be surprised if you didn't solve the problem with a new HP toner. As other have suggested, off-brands can bite you when it comes to toner-transfer.
--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, Brian Lalor <blalor@...> wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, 8 Jan 2010 18:28:28 +0100, Stefan Trethan <stefan_trethan@...>
> wrote:
>
> > Off-brand cartridges never worked for me, but the stripe could be bad,
> > maybe something on the mirror/laser assembly?
> > Try taking the cartridge out and shake it to spread the toner evenly
> > over the width, then print a couple of pages all black.
>
> I've shaken, rattled, and rolled those cartridges to within an inch of
> their lives! I'll give it one more go before giving up.
>
> > I also buy toner on ebay, with a little patience I've always found
> > genuine brand toner well below the normal price. This comes from
> > people who don't have the printer any more and stuff like that, expiry
> > date doesn't seem to matter but brand does.
>
> New 27X cartridges are around $125, and new 27A cartridges are about $100.
> The 27X goes for 50-60 on eBay with free shipping for an official HP one,
> but if I still have other problems I'm just throwing good money after bad.
> This was intended to be a cheap purchase... :-)
>
> --
> Brian Lalor
> blalor@...
>