I set up a batch of small thin leaflets for printing yesterday, The printed pages seemed unusu7ally hot from the get-go, It printed 50, and then I started getting a black stripe all along the right of page. The cartridge is clearly gone, but is that all?
BTW, the printer cost €50 and the cartridges are typically ~€80 :-/.

I've a HP Laserjet Professional P1102W atm, which I would generally class as 'cheap sh**.' So cheap, in fact, that I have to use (spit!) M$ windows and their cd to get it programmed with an IP before I can set it up on wifi.

It's mono. I don't need colour, really, and don't enjoy paying for color cartridges. A scanner would be mildly useful but I really wouldn't pay for it.

So,

1. Sould I replace cartridge or buy new?
2. What's a cheap HP laser mono that doesn't need windoze to set up?

The black stripe is likely either an aged drum or a blockage between the laser uynit and the drun, depending on how the charges work in the device. As far as I am aware most HP devices have Linux drivers and are fairly compatible. Relatively cheap colour laser printers are available nowadays and toner doesn't dry out like ink so the shelf life is long.

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Issue solved. Yes, yes, the cartridge is knackered. That gives me an €80 euro charge to repair a €50 printer. Something else is up. I refitted the cartridge, and the black line tailed away right, but the page was crumpled up and had 2 bites taken out of it(!). I'm not going to gamble €80 to rescue a 7 year old printer with nothing but it's obstinate nature to recommend it. I think I'll have a quick hunt for a laser mono with scanner, if such a thing exists. Something's not right, and with just one hand operating my maintenance days are over.

OK - been having a quick look. HP LaserJet Pro M130nw? Does that need windows to set up wifi?

It SHOULDN'T. I don't have one to say for sure, but the laserjet pro series that I HAVE used all had the wifi setup that you could complete on the device itself.

I'm afraid that POS Hp Laserjet Professional P1102w that I'm recycling did need windows. I had windows back then, but the relevant laptop expired. I still have VMs, but there's a PITA waiting as I have to set up peripheral ports etc.

don't know about hp laserjet PROs but I installed a P1505n on Manjaro with hplip without problems.