Hoping someone can point me in the right direction with my KM2450...

Hi -

I've got an older Konica Minolta color laser (KM2450) with a few problems. All of these problems started almost within a few weeks of each other, so I'm hoping it might all have to do with one or maybe two components.

1. It's not taking in paper (or recognizing the paper) correctly. 7 or 8 times out of 10, Paper size mismatch appears on the screen and the page either gets stuck internally or comes out to far before it starts printing. So, the image or document is being printed either off the top or off the bottom of the page.
2. Paper jams in random places... but it doesn't jam. It just simply stops. Sometimes I'll get a size mismatch error instead of a jam error when this happens.
3. The latest thing it just started doing is a white line down the center of the print out.

It's not software or driver issues. It acts the same from any of the 10 machines I have with various versions of Windows.

I've been in the IT field for 17+ years, but not much experience with the inner workings of laser printers, especially color or higher end ones. I've fixed everything from cell phones & tablets to laptops... this cannot be that difficult to solve with some patience, the right knowledge/parts and a screw driver. If I can find someone to point me in the right direction and give me some basic ideas and information on where I should start troubleshooting, that would be great. I have done some troubleshooting and some basic maintenance with basic B&W HP laser printers in the past, but this KM printer seems to be a totally different animal.

Every time (it seems) that I consider just giving up on it'll start printing perfectly for a number of print jobs then slowly go back to the way it is now. I can't be the only person who's run into this problem with this model, but after countless searches I've found very little in regards to troubleshooting any of this.

If it helps, there's other behavior I've noticed: It tends to print "better" when it's been running for a long time... nice and hot. Unless I wait for 5 minutes after turning it on, I'm lucky if the paper even gets far enough in so it can start putting toner on the paper and if the paper does go through when it's cold I'll sometimes only get one color with streaks in it. Also if I print the job 3 times, 8 or 9 times out of ten, the print is aligned close perfect on the 3rd print (and after) with no quality issues.

To top it off, the thing still has like $400 worth of toner in it, which is the main reason why I'm taking the time to see if I can figure this out. I'd kick myself junking this if all the problems are caused by a $10 bad or dirty sensor and a dog hair on the fuser.

Any ideas?

Thank you very much for your time!

Andy