Lexmark C543dn

Worked for 6 months

This was my first color, laser printer. I was very satisfied with its performance until the past month. The duplexer started jamming. It was fairly easy to remove the jams. But after clearing the last jam the error message continued to state that there was a jam. I had removed the jammed page intact -- there had been no scraps left in the paper path. I re-examined the paper path and reset the printer about a dozen times, but the error message persisted. I contacted customer support, and they could not help me. Now I must either pay to have it fixed or replace the printer.

Great printer but needed cleaning before use

I found it very easy to get the printer on my network and get it running in a short amount of time. However, I kept getting pages with vertical white lines in them from the black toner not being consistent across the page. Luckily, the Lexmark support was able to help and they suggested cleaning the print heads (near the laser) with a clean cloth (the image system must be removed prior to cleaning). That worked great. Initially, I thought it might have been a defective toner cartridge but a replacement did not clear up that issue and only the cleaning helped. I am happy with this purchase but wish that I did not have to spend all that time trying to get it to print clearly.

It`s all about driver!

I bought it on sale for $269. When I installed it first under Windows 7 and Ubuntu (with the latest drivers from the Lexmark.com), I got very fast printing Web pages (15 sec per page), but very slow photo printing (like 20 min for a 2.6MB jpg-file). Besides, for one pdf-file I got some horizontal lines on the printed page. I contacted the Lexmark Support, they sent me Windows XP driver. Under XP the printer works very well (15 sec for printing any photo files, no horizontal lines on the printed pdf-file). But under Windows 7 I still could not print some of my photos (for printing 2.9MB jpg-file I got a msg "Out of memory"). On the eBay I bought 512MB memory module (for $20) and upgraded my printer to 640MB. So, no more "Out of memory" msg. The Lexmark Support sent me the updated driver for Windows 7 and the printer started to print my photos for a couple of minutes per photo (slower than in XP, but at least not for 20 min). So, it is all about driver!

It's all about driver!

I bought it on sale for $[...]. When I installed it first under Windows 7 and Ubuntu (with the latest drivers from the [...]), I got very fast printing Web pages (15 sec per page), but very slow photo printing (like 20 min for a 2.6MB jpg-file). Besides, for one pdf-file I got some horizontal lines on the printed page.

I contacted the Lexmark Support, they sent me Windows XP driver. Under XP the printer works very well (15 sec for printing any photo files, no horizontal lines on the printed pdf-file). But under Windows 7 I still could not print some of my photos (for printing 2.9MB jpg-file I got a msg "Out of memory"). On the eBay I bought 512MB memory module (for $20) and upgraded my printer to 640MB. So, no more "Out of memory" msg. The Lexmark Support sent me the updated driver for Windows 7 and the printer started to print my photos for a couple of minutes per photo (slower than in XP, but at least not for 20 min).

So, it is all about driver!

Not Happy

When received and connected up printer had promblems. Contacted MFG and they sent a part that I had to install. After installing part printer still didn't work and then told by MFG that they was going to send me a new printer.
Received new printed less the parts that I installed in old printer. Had to remove part that I installed and put it in the new printer.

So bottom line is I'm not 100% happy.

stay away from this printer

nothing but trouble from day one after thirty days i give up, did not come with manual high ink usage very slow just nothing good to say about the printer.

It is perfect and reliable for my use

+ I have never had a problem with this computer. I have not ever put it under a great load. I leave it turned off most of the time but I turn it on, and by the time I am ready to print a document, so is it. I don't even see much of need to keep it in even power save mode (besides the Wake On Lan feature of course). It is so close to me so I am not bothered with that though.
+ I keep it plugged into my Wireless Draft 2.0 Router and have never had any connection problems. It is really easy to set up on Linux and Windows 7. The drivers were automatically installed on Windows and even updated when new ones were available. Linux (Ubuntu 9.04) didn't even have to download drivers, it just worked the moment I confirmed with Linux that it was a Lexmark printer of a certain model. Adding a network printer on Windows 7 is as easy I could imagine it to be and Linux was not far behind.
+ It certainly is not a speed demon at printing either black or white but It prints out a very steady flow no matter if a page is color, black, or however complex (3-D Graphics and such do not print out slower than text. I love the duplex feature and it is adjustable for "Econo Mode" so you use up a little less toner on each.
+ It was pretty easy to set up physically. All the spacers and everything are all bright orange and pretty hard to miss. It took a little bit of figuring to see how to open and close areas of the printer but nothing too complicated for anyone to handle. Anyone would be able to figure it out eventually with just a little patience.

I love it, but don't expect it to have the best pages per minute ever. Although, the cold-start and calibration I think is faster than average.

Lots of ink left, but claims to be empty

I bought this printer several months ago at a great price. When I first brought it home and hooked it up it did not work. I bought it back and got another which to my surprise did not work either. It was giving me a strange error message. I thought perhaps it was my fault, a user error. So to avoid the embarrassment of walking in the store again I called tech support.

The tech support rep walked me through the problem. There was a batch of these printers that when shipped resulted in a loose cable on the internal board itself. He walked me through unscrewing the printer, opening the back, removing a cable and securing it more tightly.

The printer worked GREAT after this. I have been using it to print mostly addresses on envelopes. The included cartridge ran out rather quickly. I assumed this was because it was just a starter cartridge. I purchased a new one which also ran out quickly. After all, I am only printing addresses on envelopes. I wondered why the ink was running out so quickly.

I decided to investigate and take apart the cartridge to see how much toner was actually left. To my surprise the cartridge was nearly 1/4 full!!!! The printer must be programmed to report "empty" when a certain amount of pages have been printed despite how much ink was used. Most printers have an option to circumvent this "quality control" feature. But not this one.

I would warn potential buyers against this printer. It prints wonderfully. But it is designed to have you purchasing toner on a regular basis. This is how printer companies make $$ now. They sell you a cheap printer and get you on toner. The cartridges are also design so that they can not be refilled. The printer knows when a particular cartridges serial number has already been used.

Lousy color and frequent jams

I'm having a different experience than other posters. The color I'm getting from the machine is mediocre. I'm printing PowerPoint presentations and any solid lines come out spotty. A solid blue line starts out blue, turns to light blue, then sometimes turns back to dark. If I print the same page over the line looks different. Often times I see little horizontal lines through solid colors and frequently I see large vertical white lines that go though the whole page. This is on a 1 week old printer with toner that the web interface says is half full.

Jams are another problem. Duplex printing jams every single time, on every other page. Forget about it. At least they're real jams though, non-duplex printing often stalls telling me that there's a jam when there is not one. I open all the doors and covers and there is nothign there. I hti the little check button and it fires right back up.

I'm using this in an office with 7 people and the thing is a real pain in the neck. People have started walking down to kinko's rather than use this thing.

Surprisingly good

I have had 2 HP all in one ink jets in the past and was ready for something different. I bought this printer from a retail store, the comparable HP was $100 more and was way slower first page out. I unpacked and lazily set it up in half an hour on a USB local set up. I have only printed a few pages and I am inpressed. Printing a paypal email notification invoice with small amounts of color and scattered text coverage, 14 seconds from mouse click to in my hand done. Thats pretty fast. I printed some graphics with a broad array of color, very clean resolution and professional look, less grainy than the HP2025DN test page in the store (an probably on crappier paper than in the store too..) So far I am happy with my purchase. I was afraid to try a new brand but I was pleasantly surprised.

The start-up manual is written in literally every language under the sun, all the info is on the disk which is fine. They forget to tell you the power switch is on the lower left of the case, no biggie. Unpacking is pretty easy, you have to take out all of the safety shipping lockout pieces and load it with paper. If you can carry it in the house you can set it up yourself, not terribly heavy. If it goes into power save mode you can press the cancel button to wake it up and have instant printing again. Super fast! I tried to pring in sleep mode once and it took 1 minute to calibrate and then print. I just bought a set of 4 of the HY (high Yield) 2500pg cartridges from amazon for $280 delivered. Basically, so far so good.