Need printer help

[Deleted]

Anyone who knows printers want to take a crack at this?

Yesterday I tried to help someone with their printer and it had a strange problem. It doesn't seem to want to print in color, and when I checked the ink levels, it gave me little question-mark icons for the CYM ink levels (and showed the actual levels as empty, but clearly there's something else going on if the little question marks are showing up). I tried everything I could think of and every resource I could find online, short of calling tech support because the thing is past warranty and HP's website says fees will probably apply for calling tech support with an expired warranty.

Here's what I did that didn't work:

- I ran the diagnostic tools and did an alignment check and automated printhead cleaning. Most of the test pages printed with CYM completely missing. Two diagnostic prints had faint smears of magenta at some points, but that was the only trace of color I saw all day.
- I took the cartridges out, checked them, and plugged them back in. They were plugged in correctly in the first place, and all three vents were completely clear of debris. Everything on them looked normal.
- I specifically told software to print in color. Still came out grayscale.

Stuff I didn't try:

- I didn't manually clean the printhead. I tried that before when her old printer had similar problems and it didn't work. And it was messy and tedious and annoying. I didn't feel like trying it again and I didn't think that was the problem, especially since the black ink cartridge worked fine.
- I didn't reinstall the software. This seems to be a hardware problem. I was also pressed for time and had other things I was helping her with, and I didn't want to spend half an hour on something that I didn't think was likely to work.

So at this point I think she just has some dud cartridges. She mentioned she bought them a few months ago and they've never worked. My final suggestion was to buy a new package and try those, but if anyone has any insight into this problem I'd love to hear it.

The printer is an HP Photosmart 6520, used with Windows 7.

[Ian Wolf-Park]

I'm no tech support or expert (but I do own a HP printer), but it's most likely that the ink cartridge is expired or dried up somewhere deep inside the cartridge, based on the information given that barely any colour is coming out at all.

[Deleted]

That's the conclusion I came to, too. Thanks for confirming it--I was worried there was something obvious I was missing. She said the cartridges are only a few months old and haven't been used often, so maybe they dried up from disuse.

[Ian Wolf-Park]

Yeah, I had that happen with colour ink before when I tested the printer by photocopying something (mine's an all-in-one printer), but I wasn't even aware that the colour had dried up until changing the cartridge. Black ink, on the other hand, wasn't a problem, due to the fact that it was used more often than colour.

[Deleted]

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. She doesn't print or copy stuff very often. Thanks for your help! I appreciate it a lot.

[Coaster]

Yep, first rule of tech support is replicate the problem and see what combinations of variables make it happen. In this case, try the same printer with a color cartridge that you know should be working; if it starts working, it's definitely something to do with that ink, otherwise, it's definitely not something to do with that ink.