 |
Printer problems
12 March 2013 | by Computers have the ability to raise my blood pressure to dangerous levels, but nothing causes quite so much stress as printers. Like most home users I suspect we are not heavy printer users. But we always seem to end up throwing away a little-used printer (usually with a full cartridge of ink) because of some alleged problem with the print cartridges.
We have an HP Photosmart 2575 All-in-one printer. We have had it for several years. In that time I would estimate that it has used no more than 4 sets of print cartridges. The cartridges installed are full and genuine HP products, not cheap refills. But whenever we try to print a message comes up: “Ink Cartridge Problem. Remove and check color cartridge.”
We have removed, checked and cleaned the colour cartridge. We have removed, checked and cleaned the black ink cartridge. We have cleaned the contacts. We have done this over and over again and still we get the same damned message.
The stupid thing about this is that the printer will still make a perfect colour copy. So I know that it is perfectly capable of printing. But I can’t print from the computer no matter what I do. Grrrr!
3 Responses to “Printer problems”
 Ham Radio Deluxe |
 Ham Radio Prep |
 KB3IFH QSL Cards  Hip Ham Shirts  HamRadioAuctions Reliance Antennas Enigma Shop |  morseDX  Ni4L Antennas  R&L Electronics antennas.us Ears to Our World |
- Matt W1MST, Managing Editor
Hi Julian
Have you tried a firmware update? There may be a physical or electrical difference in the new cartridges that might be catered for in new firmware.
typical driver compatibility issues. When Windows does it’s wonderful automatic updates it leaves your peripherals that are not powered on continuously behind, it never checks for them. Try loading updated drivers for the printer (if they even exist since Microsoft really doesn’t care if they don’t get the money for it). if you cant find any, remove the printer and it’s drivers and do a complete reinstall to force the system to up date it. and get used to doing the same thing over and over and over, since Microsoft programmers are NOT noted for using commonsense in the way they do things. Remember, when they unrolled the windows 98 system Beta they left Bill Gates red faced on an international satellite link to millions of IT professionals, facing a BSOD when he tried to demonstrate a plug and play USB scanner.
Julian, I’m sorry to hear of your printer woes. The secret, in my experience, is to dispense with inkjet altogether and buy a laser printer. For as infrequently as I print photos or color, I can just send them off for printing. Even relatively inexpensive laser printers are steadfastly reliable. My Brother HL-5040 cost me 15 USD at a thrift store and even after a dozen reams of paper, I’ve only changed the toner once (remanufactured). Another 30 USD bought an HP JetDirect network interface and I can print from Windows, Linux, and Mac without thinking.