Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Munenori Kimura

Tetsuya Yano

Kyohei Matsumura

Susumu Miyazaki

An image forming apparatus includes an apparatus body, a developer container, a data recording medium, a contact terminal, a detector, and control circuitry. The developer container is detachably attached in the apparatus body. The data recording medium is on the developer container. The contact terminal is disposed in the apparatus body and contacts the data recording medium. The detector detects a communication failure between the data recording medium and the apparatus body. The control circuitry executes a control mode to vibrate the data recording medium when the detector detects the communication failure.

Image forming apparatus having a control mode to vibrate a data recording medium

An image forming system in which an energy saving mode can be canceled by an external device when the external device requests a printing operation to an image forming apparatus which is set in the energy saving mode. The external device outputs image data to be printed. Power consumption of the image forming apparatus is reduced when the image forming apparatus is waiting to receive the image data. A communication line connects the external device to the image forming apparatus. An energy saving control unit, provided in the image forming apparatus, recognizes a print request sent from the external device via the communication line when the image forming apparatus is set in the energy saving mode so that the energy saving mode is canceled when the print request is recognized. The print request can be either a strobe signal or a wakeup command. A ready command may be sent to the external device when the image forming apparatus is set in a stable state.

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Kanagawa, Japan

Munenori Kimura