Would guess between 500 and 2000 if its real bad. Had some bad TN323 AM toners. If it makes it past a bottle 15-25K then it should be ok. If it does...
You can put a request for the firmware in the Service Manual request forum and someone might offer to give it to you. I'm retired and no longer have...
Woxner is correct. We've come across this tons of time. There is a foam noise dampening pad in the toner add drive unit. The foam gets really sticky...
I think I'd examine, and possibly clean the encoder strip. Ink on the encoder strip can cause this effect. A sticky carriage rail can also cause this...
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