Weird printout problem -- like a doublestruck coin except whole doc

At first I thought my networked Brother MFC-685W all-in-one was at fault, but then I got the idea to try printing out the same .pdf from a different computer, and guess what? It printed out fine. So there's something weird that's going on with my main laptop -- it's a Gateway MS2252, aka P7805. It's an older machine -- dates back to 2009, but it has an upgraded processor (2.8ghz) and 8 gigs of ram with over 1.5tb of storage, so it's doing me just fine -- until stuff like this happens. Windows 7 is up to date.

And that's just it, suddenly all my print output looks like it's been doublestruck, but with the second strike being maybe a couple of dots shifted to the right of the original. And I know of the right-shift only because it is just a little fainter than the original imprint. Problem is, because the second imprint is almost as dark as the first, it results in a printout that is almost impossible to read. My mind is telling me that my eyes are not focusing properly when I know that it's actually an optical issue, but it still makes it just about impossible to read any hardcopy output.

So, if I can assume safely that this isn't some sort of diabolical scheme cooked up between Windows Networks and my Brother printer (hey, when it comes to M$, I don't rule anything out), what on Earth would be causing my computer to be sending this sort of corrupt file output? And more importantly, of course, what can I do to put an end to this nonsense?

And on a somewhat unrelated matter, but one that is just as infuriating because it's impacting my ability to get any work done -- why is it that sometimes Windows Network works, and sometimes it doesn't when it comes to devices like printers? I'm trying to print out several documents using my computer that isn't affected by this doublestrike phenomenon over the same wireless network (although the printer is connected to the router via a network cable), but all the documents are piling up in the printer's queue and just sitting there. I run into this problem periodically and I've never really been able to figure out why it happens. My usual tactic is to reboot the computer and see if that takes care of the problem. This time it hasn't worked. I've emptied the queue and shut down and restarted the printer. But it hasn't done any good yet. Still piling up in the queue.

And what makes it just that much more infuriating is, it wasn't but just a few days ago that I printed out the "good" pdfs from this machine using the same printer over this network, and everything was behaving normally. But now, butkiss.

Now, I've tangled with this sort of problem in the past, and the queue would at least give me an indication of what was going on in the status column. But in this case, the status column remains blank, even after 15 minutes or more. As I write this, I've had three documents sitting in the queue for over a half hour and there's nothing in the status column.

So, any recommendations on what I can do to "wake up" my network? The printer's fine. It's sitting there with paper in it, waiting for a print job to make it all the way to where it actually gets received by the printer. As I mentioned, I've rebooted the printer, even rebooted the computer, but still no joy. I'm getting so frustrated, I'm about to go back to using pen and paper, I swear to God.

As always, thanks for any advice you care to offer. You guys have saved my bacon more times than I can count. I only ask that you address these two separate issues, well, separately when or if you choose to respond. Thanks again.

I'm finding it very had to believe that I've stumped the Win7 community with my pair of problems. Seriously, nobody has any advice?

I'm wondering if maybe I try uninstalling and reinstalling the driver for my Brother All-in-One, whether that will help. It couldn't hurt, I guess.

I'm gonna give it a try. I'll report back.