I did notice that my 3100cn would smear quite a lot on the right side when the image was too close to the edge of the side margin limit. By reducing the print size, it fixed the problem. I do still get random smears on the inner portion of the page and have noticed other people mention the same problem in this forum. Apparently there is some kind of design flaw with the drum or other part, which causes the smears even in relatively new printers with low print counts (less than 500 copies printed).

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@locc wrote:

would a bad imaging drum cause the print to be smeared somewhat. It was printing out fine before, the status of the image drum is "OK" and order soon.

Is there a maintenance kit for this as well, any pointers on what to clean to prevent smearing or something near that?

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As usual, looks that way. With one dead 3100cn having your same smear problems, and another dead due to the corrupt firmware update that Dell won't admit to, I will not ever be buying another Dell printer to be sure.