Fax Machine Problems

Trivial matters, like fax machine problems, can not only ruin your day but can also affect your personal or business relationships. You might have noticed that the things start to go wrong, especially, whenever you are expecting an important communication. It may be that, you are waiting for an important sales order from your client or are busy giving finishing touches to a quotation before you send fax it over to your client but couldn't because your fax machine is not working for some reason. How would you react in such a situation? The following is a brief note that discusses ways to deal with fax machine problems.

Fax machines are electronic devices that have the ability to print, scan a document and send it over the telephone line and using modems to another fax machine. The modern, portable fax machines are available in the form of GSM mobile phones that send or receive a fax using mobile technology.

Fax Machine Troubleshooting

For those who believe in documents as proofs, fax machines are a heaven sent gift. However, you may expect a device to malfunction, occasionally. The fax machine problems that you are facing can be as simple as the following:

Incoming and Outgoing Fax
It might be that you are facing fax machine problems while sending and/or receiving faxes. You can start resolving these fax machine issues, by checking the telephone cord to which your fax machine is connected. Connect a standard telephone to the incoming telephone line and check for the dial tone. If it is all right, then reattach the fax unit to the telephone line, be sure to make the proper connections using proper fax ports and give another try.

Check whether the wall jack, which acts as a junction in the system, is functioning properly or not. Replace it, if you find it faulty.

You may find that, you can transmit a fax but cannot receive one or it may be vice versa. You can try to master the problem by checking the telephone line as explained above. Test the lamp or the light of your fax machine. Replace it, if it has burned out. After checking all of this, if the fax machine problems are unresolved, then call in a technician or expert help. You may need to replace your fax machine.

Image Quality
Quality of the faxes printed at your end, may not be up to the mark. It may be that the image quality of the printed pages of the fax, is too dark or too light to read. You can try to resolve these fax machine issues by changing the density setting on your fax machine. Check whether you have successfully solved the problem or not by doing a fax test. If it is ok, then the sender of the fax may be having problems with his own fax machine.

If you are the sender of the fax, then clean all the surfaces, including the glass of the scanner component and rest of the moving parts of the fax machine thoroughly, by opening the document feed compartment of the fax machine.

Maybe, you face a different kind of problem, such as the printed pages are marred with streaks or spots of ink which is making them unreadable. The leaking toner or ink of your fax machine may be the cause of dirty prints. Open the printer door of your fax machine and make sure that the ink cartridge is working properly and the toners are properly fitted and are not falling down. If the problem is with the cartridge, replace it.

One of the common problems with fax machines is that of paper getting stuck inside the machine. It may be in the document feed compartment or in the printing compartment of the fax machine. One way of troubleshooting this problem, is to pull the paper gently in the direction in which the paper moves, whilst the machine is in the operation.

In some cases, you may find that everything is fine tuned, but you are receiving lots of messages informing you of communication errors. Inform your telephone company which may check your telephone line for interference and can successfully solve the problem.

The emails and efax or Internet fax services have changed the way we used to communicate. These facilities are replacing fax machines very fast. But there are still individuals and businesses that rely on fax machines in their day-to-day affairs. If you are one of them, then you could solve the commonly faced fax machine problems listed above on your own. The best way to avoid such problems is to service your fax machine regularly and use quality spare parts produced by the manufacturer.