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Check out our Black or Color Ink Not Printing, Other Print Quality Issues info about: Print quality and Cartridge Issues.
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The alignment on my cartridges has gotten further and further off over the last year. the color calibration (Tools>System Setup>Print Quality>color calibration) does not help.

 

I believe I remember printing a page and then scanning it to align the colors during the original setup of the printer, but find no way to re-preform this alignment. The alignment is off by about .060/.070 inches and is not making me happy.

 

Thanks

12 REPLIES 12
HP Recommended

I have exactly the same problem. I use it for business and I cannot print any flyer with this quality. For me, the red color is mainly shifted-up.

 

I am looking forward to a solution.

 

Thanks.

HP Recommended

We are having this problem except with the blue.  Calibration does not fix it.  The printer is wireless and all computers that send an image to print have the same problem so it is not a computer driver problem.  

 

Will replacing a 1/2 full print cartridge fix the problem?  I don't want to spend that kind of money if it has not impact.

 

Thanks.

HP Recommended
@brgmgb - - I would look at this document here on defective printouts for this model of printer. One of the steps listed is in the document does state to replace the cartridge, but it takes you through other processes first to eliminate other issues as the root cause prior to cartridge replacement. I hope that this helps.
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Thank you for the suggestion. I have been through that document many times over the last few weeks. It does not address the color cartridges being out of alignment.

I have run the printer through calibration mode many times with no success. Last night I unplugged the printer. I also changed the yellow cartridge because it said it was low (<100 pages left). I just printed the demo page and the colors look good. I also made a color copy of a photo and it looks good. I don't know if the problem was caused by the low yellow cartridge or if it was fixed by unplugging the device for 8 hours.
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has anyone else had any luck solving this problem? it just started happening to me the other day. the cyan is shifted up about .06 inches. please help if you can!! i tried updating the firmware, unplugging the machine, new cartridges, re-calibrating and nothing is working.

HP Recommended

Well it seems that this printer has problem to calibrate when one of the cartridge is nearly empty. It is the feedback I got from HP tech support and they were right. So by replacing the cartridges that were nearly empty did solve the problem. On the opposite, it does not save the planet or our wallet as we cannot extend the lifetime of the cartridges to the max.

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Most of these comments are from 2012 but I think I have a solution.  The color alignment got worse as toner was almost empty, but when I replaced toner, it did not correct itself.  I had to run color calibration over and over (about 12 times) to finally get an acceptable allignment.  Wrench icon-system settings-print quality-color calibration-calibrate now.  Hope this helps, I almost gave up on the machine.

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I would second that replacing the low cartridge fixed the alignment issue. Ours has been skewed for months but still prints the color. Swapped the cartridge, it ran it's internal alignment, and i printed the demo page and it looks flawless now.

HP Recommended

This helped for me too.

The Yellow cartrige was low, but mainly the black print was misaligned. A new yellow cartrige was mounted, and the problem was gone.

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