Many moons ago, i got a good deal in a Samsung CLP-620ND. Four color laser printer, double sided, keeps working. My firmware is currently circa September/October 2009, so a decade old, and thus certain to be a security nightmare.

Samsung doesn't support it at all, and assorted Google searches dump you onto HP's web site, where they have some old PC software drivers, but no firmware images.

Digging deeper into the scary end of the Google search results, I'm finding that I can spend $38 from eReset to sell me firmware that Samsung might once have provided for free. Print-time.net offers to send you a EUR 15 "download.bat" file, which sounds like a security nightmare just waiting to happen. Other even more sketchy web sites just offer you the same downloads that the HP web site has.

I even dug deep into the weirder corners of the Internet Wayback Machine and came up empty.

So... if ever there was a question that somebody here might know a useful answer to...

Is this being used as a network connected printer?

Must it be used that way, for your purposes?

Even network connected ought to be fine, so long as not internet/cloud connected.

The printer lives on my home network, and (so far as I know) is not remotely reachable from the Internet, and it predates any of the cloud printing features that newer printers include.

We print to it from all of our laptops over the WiFi. As a hardware device, it's held up fantastic, no doubt because we don't use it all that much. And, as such, I don't want to spend the bucks on a replacement. What I do want to do is find whatever Samsung's final firmware image for the printer was, so I can perhaps squash some annoying bugs. Notably, it likes to announce that it has a paper jam when, in fact, it's just fine.

The printer is, sadly, too old to come from the era where it might have auto-updated itself. Instead, the "wizard" button, which you access from its embedded web server, just lets you upload a binary firmware image. No "hey printer, go try and download it yourself" button.

Unless your research has turned up evidence to the contrary, I would suggest that that particular issue is likely to be a malfunctioning physical sensor, rather than a firmware bug. Too bad "fixyourownprinter.com" isn't the same thing that it used to be in the old days (detailed teardown instructions and sales of replacement parts), now it just seems to be a forum.

Keep in mind that there's no shame in buying a new printer. I understand that four color double sided isn't pocket change, though. I got one of these, three years ago, after I had resisted replacing its predecessor for far too long. Been happy with it, and having the multi-function scanner/copier features has actually been really useful.

I have been using this HP CP2025DN four-color duplexing network-enabled laser printer for six or seven years now. It has been absolutely bulletproof beyond a feed problem that was fixed by installing a user-replaceable pickup and registration roller kit.

Then somehow a staple fell into the works, and I had to pay $1,600 pesos (less than $100 USD) for a complete overhaul, it has been flawless since.

While waiting for the repairs, I purchased on Amazon a used replacement, complete with toner cartridges, for $113 USD plus shipping and (for me, at least) plus customs duty. The printer had less than 2,000 total pages on the counter. The cartridges were worth more than I paid for the printer.

If you can find a new one of these for sale (unlikely), the last time I saw one it was selling for about $1,400 USD.

Maybe I should just stick with "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" and wait until it finally, irreparably goes belly up.

Also, for what it's worth, I've done well ordering 3rd-party toner cartridges, for half the price of the proper originals. I expect those will eventually be unavailable, which might well be the thing that forces me to upgrade.

Dragging an old thread out of the depths of history:

Our ancient Samsung printer has lately been dumping blue stripes on some pages and otherwise misbehaving. I'll note that the supply chain woes for laser printers seem to have resolved. You can now buy pretty much any printer you want and they're all in stock and shipping immediately.

So, after a bunch of research, I decided to go for a Brother workgroup-class color laser (https://www.brother-usa.com/products/hll8360cdw). What tipped the scales for me is that it apparently ships with full-capacity cartridges, rather than low-capacity, plus it explicitly supports gigabit Ethernet, so it should be able to run quickly on my home network. Also, all the HP printer comments are chock full of HP's DRM toner lockout shenanigans, which I emphatically don't want to deal with.

Anyway, we'll see how this shakes out. I suppose I should have no qualms about replacing a circa 2008 printer in 2023. Fifteen years and still kinda working represents a good run. I don't think I have anything else on the home network older than it.

I've been using a Brother MFC colour laser printer here for the past few years, and like it quite a bit.

The cartridges do have "page counter" chips, but there's a secret button press combo to reset the counters if need be. The chips can also be transferred to replacement cartridges without much fuss.

Most of the third-party cartridges seem to arrive with working chips, so transferring/resetting the old ones shouldn't be needed.

Cheers

My ancient HP color laser printer, Hewlett Packard CP2025dn, is still working well. I'll need to replace the pickup roller pretty soon, but that's about all. It happily accepts non-HP cartridges, and in the printer's front panel menu selection, if you dig deeply enough, you can find the "Toner Out Override" setting that lets you use your cartridges to the last drop uhhh... bit of toner powder.

~20pages per minute, duplexing, built-in networking, insane maximum duty cycle (40K monthly). I bought it used for a couple hundred dollars from a rehab guy in England (fully serviced, all new rollers, half-full cartridges), got a surprise to find it needed 220V not 110, added a transformer to the wiring mess behind my computer hutch, and all is good.

tanstaafl.