My Dell 1700n Drum and Toner Cartridge were both replaced when the drum replace light blinked and the print was getting lighter. Despite resetting the Drum counter the printer still only prints faintly even when printing configuration pages. What else can be checked? I have placed other cartridges in this unit and the results are the same: faint print....

Have you checked the fuser?

A laser printer fuser assembly is the heating roller unit that melts and fuses the toner onto the paper. The fuser assembly is made up of a heating roller and a pressure roller.

The heating roller applies the heat to the toner on the printed page and the pressure roller presses and fuses the toner into the printed page. If it's bad and not heating properly, the print will be faint, which is what you describe. You may be able to remove and clean the fuser, but if the printer gets lots of use, it may just be worn out.

See this link for an idea of what it looks like and a price.

http://www.fastprinters.com/ProductDetails.asp?product_id=DELL-H4919

I do not work or represent this company, so shop around.

I took your advice and replace the fuser unit with a known good one that works fine in another 1700 and the results are almost the same. Now the print is both faint and does not print on the top 1.25" of the page. Print tests are done by pressing the Cont. button when the printer is ready to avoid any outside printing software issues. Tried the original fuser unit in another 1700 printer and it works fine there, but not in the original 1700. Is there a diagnostic program to identify if the problem is with the main circuitboard?