Doesn't print black, severe printer lines with illegible text

[misakimchee]

I inherited this printer, so I don't know when the problems started, but these issues were apparent the moment I plugged my printer into the wall socket. I replaced some of the low ink cartridges and the problems persisted:

• when printing black, only shows as gray
• when printing a word doc, prints legible text with varying shades of gray
• when printing a .gif/jpg, prints gray with printer lines
• when printing specifically black and white, prints gray partial-text that is completely illegible. Can't even read any diagnostic text when I run the Clean Printhead and Print Quality Report features.
• prints color perfectly in the Clean Printhead and Print Quality Report features
• prints color perfectly when I sent it a CMYK diagram, except the black was very light grey

I tried restarting the printer and the virtual assistant walk-through, no luck. There's clearly an issue with the black ink but it's not coming from the cartridge. What puzzles me is the color printing perfectly in the diagnostic and text sometimes printing and sometimes not. Is this printer a lost cause or is there something I can do?

[Anand_Andy]

Hi @misakimchee,

Welcome to the HP Support Community

I understand you are facing a print quality issue with your HP Photosmart 6515 printer. Not to worry I will help you to get a resolution to resolve the issue.

To assist better:

• Are you using genuine HP ink cartridges?
• Does the copy print out the same way? 
• What's the application you are trying to print from? 
• Have you tried printing from a different application or device? 

While you respond to that, let's print a Print Quality Diagnostic page -Post the Print Quality Diagnostic page here so we can help you further. 

You may also refer to this document with steps to fix the " Print Quality Issues" issue applicable to your printer -  Print Quality Issues

 Also, try updating the printer's firmware - HP Printers - Updating or Upgrading Printer Firmware 

If the issue still persists, I'm sending out a private message to assist you with the next course of action. 

Please check your Private message icon on the upper right corner of your HP Community profile Next, to your profile Name, you should see a little blue envelope, please click on it or simply click on this link.

Hope this helps! Keep me posted. 

Please click “Accepted Solution” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution. Click the “Kudos/Thumbs Up" on the bottom right to say “Thanks” for helping!

[misakimchee]

Are you using genuine HP ink cartridges? When I first received the printer, all the cartridges were HP ink. All the problems I've described were present. The magenta and black were low, so I bought cartridges from LDProducts and replaced them. I am having no issues with the off-brand Magenta cartridge, so I highly doubt the problem is with the off-brand Black cartridge. Yellow and Blue are still HP ink cartridges but are starting to run low. The same problems persisted even after the cartridge change.

Does the copy print out the same way? Yes, the copy prints out the same way no matter what app or computer I use. If I print black & white, almost nothing is printed. See the Diagnostic printout and you will see there is no text and the black is not printing at all. If there's any text that would help me know if there's any issues, I can't read it because it would have used Black ink.

 

What's the application you are trying to print from?  Have you tried printing from a different application or device? I've tried Google Docs, Microsoft Word, and Apple's default Preview and Pages apps. Same results every time.

 

 

Try updating the printer's firmware?  Yes, it's updated. I didn't try printing until the firmware had been updated. 

[misakimchee]

For anyone wondering what happened, I called a rep and determined the printer was a lost cause. I'm out of warranty and I'm 90% certain the problem is with the printer hardware and not the cartridges.