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- HP Community
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- Printer Ink Cartridges & Print Quality
- Re: HP X551DW Printhead/Ink Problem - Cleaning doesn't fix i...

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02-08-2021 01:57 PM - edited 02-08-2021 02:01 PM
Good afternoon HP Community - I'm hoping you can help me troubleshoot an issue with our HP Officejet Pro X551DW. It's been working fine for months, but it now has vertical gaps (whole page) in both black and color ink when printing. I have tried the various cleaning functions (multiple times) and looked online but can't find any suggestions. I'm suspecting the print head itself is either broken or really badly clogged?
The printer is connected through direct USB to my computer, but the same problem also occurred over a network connection.
No error messages appear on the printer or computer.
When does this happen?
All B&W and color prints that go through the printer, both from a computer and from the printer itself (reports).
I have attached pictures of the print quality report, which show the changes with cleaning.
Picture #1 is before any cleaning (had sat without printing for about a month)
Picture #2 is after a level 3 cleaning has completed.
Picture #3 is after a 2nd level 3 cleaning has completed about 4 hours after the first one has completed.
Picture #4 is about 4 hours after the 2nd level 3 cleaning completed
Picture #5 is after the 3rd level 3 cleaning is done (it looks as bad as the first one)
Solutions I have tried
All levels of cleaning (multiple times)
Print Smear utility
Firmware update
Factory reset to default firmware (after the firmware update, so actually have tried 3 levels of firmware)
Different ink cartridges (both genuine HP and 3rd party) - cartridges work fine in another printer (X576dw)
Any suggestions? Help!!!!