How long do Ink cartridges last?

[DiggerBrian]

I have a Photosmart premium 309 g-m printer that is trying to tell me that my ink cartriges are near empty even though they have had very little use. I bought genuine HP cartridges, fitted them, all worked well at first but now several months later - empty! What is going on here, no way have I USED that ink. The same happened with the set that came with the printer. I even put a 364XL black in and that has now failed completely. Does not using the printer much at all over several months result in the ink evaporating, drying out leaking out or what?

When I put the 364XL black in I left the old standard 364 black out altogether but the printer gave error messages so I fitted the old one back in thinking it would use the new XL version - is there any way of checking this?

[Kyle_W]

The first set of cartridges that came with your printer went fast because those are just starter cartridges. They are not as full as standard cartridges. And do you mean 564 cartridges? This printer does not take 364 cartridge. 

You are supposed to get about 250 pages out of the black 564 cartridge and 300 pages out of the color cartridges, but that is just regular paper. If you are printing photos, the ink will run out a whole lot faster. 

[DiggerBrian]

Hi Kyle, Thanks for your comment, you had me worried there for a moment, the printer is infact a C309g I think I missed the C from my initial post and hope this explains the confussion over the cartridges. The shopping card that came with the printer recommends 364 so I'm sure they are correct.

Interesting figures you quote for the number of pages, I cannot have printed more than 30 sides in mixed black and colours so am way short of expectations here. Perhaps it is just the low use over 6 or 7 months that somehow causes the problem.

I half suspected that the original cartridges were 'starter' ones but to be honest I got as much out of them as the new ones.

Assuming there could be lots of ink still in the cartridges is there any way of fooling the printer into thinking they are new ones? So far as I've played about with them I notice that if I take them out and then put them back the printer still comes up with a 'nearly empty' warning?

Thank, Brian