This article describes how to get your Samsung printer working again without shelling out a fortune for a new Imaging unit. If you just want to know how to do do it, skip to the next step, the rest of this step is just an explanation of how I figured this out! Note that this worked for my CLP-365w printer but it may work for other similar Samsung models too. It will certainly work for any printer that uses the CLT-R406 imaging unit but I suspect they all use a similar technique to reset the page count. The story: Samsung produce a very nice range of domestic laser printers for the home, they're quite cheap too.

However, they have engineered in some cunning ways to make money. All of the consumables for these printers (toners and the image drum) need to be replaced when the unit tells you, otherwise the printer will not print.

So even if you manually fill up the toner cartridge, the printer still 'thinks' it is empty and will refuse to print. I am not going to cover manual toner refilling here but there are plenty of guides around. The other 'consumable' on these printers is the so called 'Imaging unit'. It's a drum which is an essential component in any laser printer and it is used to transfer ink to the page in the printing process. To be fair, this component is a consumable, it will wear out eventually causing blurry or streaky pages etc. These Samsung printers have a kind of printing 'odometer' that records how many pages have been printed using the current imaging unit.

Software & drivers Forums. And reliability with the professional performance of the Samsung brand at great prices to offer unprecedented print innovations and. Here's a video to show how to remove the Toner (each color), Wast Toner and Imaging Unit.

They also have a built in hard coded lifespan of about 5000 pages (i think.). So once we hit this page count, the red light of death illuminates on your printer and we get a lovely message saying 'Warning, prepare new imaging unit'. At first I thought, 'ahhh its ok, it's just a warning, I'll carry on printing until it really needs replacing' - wrong. The printer literally won't print anything until you replace the imaging unit. So, I look online - wow £75! What a rip off!

The ink cartridges for these things cost a bomb (so far I have just paid up but I will probably start refilling soon) but this is beginning to take the p*ss I thought! I decided to take the Imaging unit out and examine it - surprise surprise, it looked perfect, not a single blemish or mark, hardly any dirt (not sure what a knackered one looks like to be fair, but this looked brand new to me). Also, the pages printed prior to this were perfect as well, there as never any sign of degradation.

A quick google search reveals many places offering to sell you a 'reset chip' for around £15 with instructions, it's like magic, you just unfold it, plug it onto the imaging unit, close the lid and taadaa! The printer 'thinks' you've bought a shiney new imaging unit an happily prints away.

I was about to punch in my card number and be done with it but then I watched the instruction video and took a closer look, I could see that this 'reset chip' was really just a 30p resistor stuck to a piece of plastic. Cunningly, all of the photo's and videos of these chips seem to show it covered in a black lacquer so you can't see the coloured ribbons on them. Of course they've covered this up, they wouldn't want their little secret getting out! Well sorry guys, I know your game! These people are almost as bad as Samsung, packaging a 30p resistor up and selling it for £15!

After a bit of research, I discover how these things work. The imaging unit has a small removable plastic housing with 2 resistors in, one 200k ohm, and one much weaker 56ohm fusible type resister, in parallel.

When it first powers up, the printer detects a low resistance. The printer passes a current though the drum unit and the small 'fuse' resistor blows.

Finale 2008 Update Patch Windows 2008a there. From now on, when the printer powers on, it only detects the 200k resister so it knows this is not a new drum so the printer counts all the printed pages from now on. 2 years down the line, we hit the magic number and the printer stops working because it 'thinks' the drum is now useless. So you go out and buy a new drum, it has the same 2 resistors inside, only the smaller one is not blown. You plug it in, the printer sees a low resistance again, it knows there is a new drum, so it resets the page count and then blows the new fuse and the cycle repeats.