HP Photosmart C7280 MFP print head clogged - FIXED! It LIVES ON! And even SCANS in Windows 11

[blue_gascon]

This is being posted to help others facing the same problem. During 2023 I was in and out of hospitals and recovery facilities for most of the year, My HP Photosmart C7280 sat idle during more than the entire year.  I had purchased an HP Envy 17" laptop and found drivers for the printer (HP-Photosmart-C7280-Full-Feature-Drivers-and-Software-for-windows-8-8.1-and-10) that installed and worked. But when trying to print the output was not good, with lines through the print where no ink came through, and pretty much no output from the magenta cartridge. After several attempts using the printers built-in page to clean the print heads the problems persisted. Research showed that this printer did not have removable print heads as they are not part of the cartridges. And there is absolutely no HP support available for a 15 year old inkjet - HP doesn't even make the cartridges for this printer any more. Thankfully there are remanufactured  options still available. I was ready to give up and take this printer to the dump, a real shame since this printer has a combination of features that are largely unmatched by current devices.

While researching I came across an archived posting on HP discussions titled "HP C7280 Print head cleaning". An entry by user BillTheGeo included the following solution:

"01-28-2015 05:29 PM

Acquired C7280 from son. Not used for one year and cartridges near empty. Printed with lines; two nozzels clogged. Replaced all cartridges and cleaned head dozens of times using standard procedure. No change and almost gave up. Then I tried the following:

1. started a print and after it was partially complete, pulled our power plug from printer. Then opened back and pulled out sheet of paper.

2. Print head was now out of its "garage" and could be slid manually back and forth. Slide it to the right.

3. Soaked a small sheet of eye glass cleaning fabric (no lint), about eight inches square, in distilled water and folded it into a strip. Then placed it and flattened it on the rack that the print head nozzels go over. Then carefully slid print head over the fabric making sure it did not catch.

4. Then picked up both ends of the fabric with my right and left hands, stretched it and carefully pulled it back and forth at least a dozen times under the print head. When you pull the fabric out you should see several patches of ink on it.

5. Wait for at least one hour to let the print head dry then replace back cover on printer.

6. Remove plug from wall socket, wait one minute then replace and then place power plug into the printer.

7. The printer does not like method of powering off but perservere until you see the message "printer was shut off incorrectly" or similar message. You are almost there.

8. Once the printer is ready to print, clean the printing head using the normal method then make a test print.

9. It took me four attempts of the above to eliminate the printing lines but the printer now performs perfectly.

Good luck and perservere since this is a one of best printers HP has ever made."

This process WORKED!! It fully restored the printer quality, even photo printing!

Additionally I find people saying that they cannot find software for using the scanner over a network. SOFTWARE IS NOT NEEDED! If you connect to this printer over the network by using a browser to go to its IP address and log in as admin you will see,and can use, a menu choice in the left panel as shown here:

So My MFP is now fully functional again and I have delayed the need to spend several hundred dollars on something new, at least until there are no more remanufactured cartridges available. I hope this helps someone else with similar issues since I think this is one of, if not the best, inkjet MFP ever made by HP!

Start a conv"