I hope I’m not being piggy in posting all these threads, but this site so beautifully matches what I’ve always prayed the Web would provide - a chance to air ideas. Now I just want technical help in getting ink to flow from the black cartridge (also OEM).
The problem started when it began to skip lines near the bottom of pages printed out in Word 2003/Notepad, etc., while performing OK with colors (which it still does). My computer, a model of reliability, is an old PC clone I built 5 years ago, running under XP Pro SP3. Repeated tech support chats with HP have proved unavailing, following suggestions such as cleaning the cartridge contacts in the machine & on the cartridges themselves with coffee filter paper, doing head cleans & alignments ad nauseam, reloading the driver, power cycling, carrying out coded troubleshooting keystrokes known only to HP, shaking the black cartridge to stir up any sludge, and so on far into the night. If it weren’t for being able to print in dark colors, I’d have had to acquire a new printer by now. Some forums have helped people with the keystroke sequences they got during chats. It has performed well in the fax, copy & scan modes, except when black was required. Sometimes reloading the driver did help with the skipping problem. But now I’m in the hands of the gods.
There are two blacks.
One is from the black cartridge.
One is a melange from the color cartridge.
IF your print job has any sort of color in it then there is a high chance that your black color will not come from the black cartridge, but rather a VERY dark green from the color cartridge.
This depends upon the printer but most low end printers follow the same protocol - all black or all color, no divying as that is hard to delegate headwise.
Shaking the cartridge was a bad move, for future reference.
HP has the print head on the cartridge so it’s replaced every time you replace the ink. Since you already did most stuff I’ll eliminate what you say you did,and it’s simple. Either a new cartridge is needed or time for a new printer.
Post number two is a Red Herring. It’s not a compliant about an off color black.
I was not imparting wisdom about off color black. Some people think that when their printer is not printing black, then it must be the black cartridge.
That is wrong. Many times black is printed from the color cartridge… especially with photo printers EVEN THOUGH there is a black cartrisge present.
That is all I was trying to impart. I fix enough printers and even after explaining to the client over and over, they still say “but it was the black that was not printing why did you change my color, I never use it!”.
:smack: