Brother is notorious for indicating a toner cartridge is empty when it still contains hundreds of pages. The orange toner light on my positively ancient HL-2140 came on and wouldn’t let me print anything. Being the cheapskate I am, I discovered this procedure to make it happen:
- Turn the Brother printer off.
- Open the front cover. This will reveal the cheapass white spring-loaded ON button that was formerly beneath the blue power-on indicator until you opened the front cover.
- Press and hold ON and turn the power on. Do not release the ON button. Remember, what I’m calling ON is the cheapass white spring-loaded ON button you’ll see when the front cover is opened.
- When all 3 lights light up, take your damned finger off the ON button.
- Press the ON button twice (You will see the Ready light blink every time you press the ON button).
- All the lights will light up.
- With all of the lights on, press and release the ON button 5 times (You will see the Ready light blink every time you press the ON button).
- The Error light will start blinking, perfectly normal.
- Close the front cover and wait. The printer will cycle through and make the sound it makes when you initially turn it on. After that sound stops, your blue Ready light will be on and solid.
- You are ready to print.
Don’t forget, what I’m calling the ON button is the plastic switch inside the front cover, which was once under the blue power-on button when the cover was closed and powered on.
Not relevant, but I also taped over the two clear plastic windows on either side of the cartridge (TN-330/TN360) for my Model HL-2140 printer.