print head won't clean

[dmenefee]

I own an HP F4480 All-in-one printer, which is out of warranty. It has suddenly started to skip lines while printing; it skips entire printed lines of text, 2 or 3 at a time. I installed brand new HP brand print cartridges, and the problem persisted. I then attempted to clean the print cartridges, and I get a popup after a few moments of grinding and clunking from the printer:
 
The cleaning procedure could not be completed. Please contact HP Support.
 
There is no error code and no other message, and the printer becomes quiet after displaying this.
 
My computer is a Mac, running OS X Lion, with the latest updates. The printer is several years old, and has been relatively trouble free. The only thing I can think of that might very well be a culprit is that the printer has also been jamming paper lately. I don't know enough about the printer hardware to be able to identify what's happening, but it's possible that there's a physically broken piece.
 
That being said, is there anything I *can* do short of throwing the printer away and buying, say, a Kodak instead?

[dmenefee]

well, nevermind. After opening and shutting the access panel several times (examining the print heads, etc), and attempting the self-test (holding power and pressing cancel) with no results, the self-test finally ran, and now the printer seems to be okay. There may have been a mechanical misalignment issue that was resolved by allowing the mechanism to reset itself (or something, I don't know).

[SeanS]

Thanks for the follow up and I am glad it is working again. If you ever have any other weird noises you can check out this link which provides some troubleshooting steps that may resolve the issue.

The Product Makes Noise when Printing

Take care,

Sean