Removing torn bits of paper from printer

Question

I tried feeding a thin, soft paper through an Lexmark X215 and it crumpled up and jammed. I removed the paper, but I think some of it tore. Now whenever I try to print it says Paper Jam 0. I can't find the bits of remaining paper. Where could it have gone?

Solution

Depending on how far the paper got before it jammed, the pieces could be anywhere.

According to the User Guide, Jam 0 is in the paper feed area. Remove the paper tray, look into its slot and check for paper scraps.

If you can see nothing there, remove the toner cartridge and see if any paper is visible there.

If still no luck, try removing the fuser (at the back of the printer). Check there's no paper in the fuser itself, and also make sure you cannot see any paper by looking into the slot where the fuser sits.

That checks just about the entire paper path. If you cannot find anything, it is possible that one of the little "flags" in the paper path has been broken or dislodged. These are little hinged pieces of plastic that are pushed aside by the paper (thus blocking an LED from activating a photosensor) to let the printer know where the paper is. If you find a little piece of black plastic anywhere, that's it; you then just have to figure out whether it's broken, and where it came from. At this point a service tech may be advisable.

Note: To avoid breaking the flags, it is always best to pull the paper forward (i.e. in the direction it normally travels). Of course, that's not always possible.

Comments

[clum]

Thanks. I already tried the stuff from the user guide and didn't find anything, so I already decided like you said that it was probably something more internally wrong like you said. I am using it meanwhile with the manual paper feeder which works, though very annoyingly. If I get annoyed enough by it, I will probably just buy a new printer (probably cheaper than getting a service tech).

[hdhondt]

If manual feed works, then the problem is in the paper tray. Check the tray itself, as well as its slot, to see if anything is bent/broken/missing.