Which toner fits the HP LaserJet Pro M102w?

Three time scales on the same machine

Set side by side, this printer's three capacities sketch a maintenance calendar no manual gives:

• 150 sheets in the tray — you reload it about ten times per toner;
• 1,600 pages per 17A toner;
• 12,000 pages per 19A drum — seven and a half toners.

In other words: eleven paper reloads to a toner, seven and a half toners to a drum. On a workstation printing two hundred pages a month, that gives one toner every eight months and one drum every five years. The part people think they have to watch is almost never the one that gives out.

Telling which of the two is at fault

The symptoms do not overlap once you know them. A toner at the end of its life gives pages that fade gradually, often on one side; rocking it gently from side to side gains a few dozen pages. A worn drum, by contrast, produces faults that repeat at regular intervals down the page — a spot or a band coming back every eight to ten centimetres.

A printer on Wi-Fi, with no network socket

The M102w connects over USB or Wi-Fi, never Ethernet, and its panel comes down to one indicator light. It is made for a workstation or a small office: at its maximum cycle of 10,000 pages a month — which no real use reaches on this format — a 17A toner would not last five days.