Printer alignment is terrible/off

[Claire200]

So my printer was doing great since I bought it. however, just now I was printing 5 things in a row. First two copies came out fine, the next three came out fine until it reached the bottom of the paper. The bottom of the paper was printing out crooked and blurred. I thought the printer need to be aligned, so i went ahead and align it, and clean the ink head while I was at it.

The first alignment made it worst. The whole print was now blurred and crooked. The second alignment didn't make it any better. I tried it a third time which just returned it back to the way it was before, printing fine until the bottom of the page.

I looked inside the printer, where the paper feeds, and couldn't find anything stuck or jammed. I'm only putting one paper in the tray when doing these alignments as well. When the paper is being taken into the printer, it does sound a bit louder than usual. I also have the full drivers for the printer downloaded. Also, every alignment sheet I did came out fine, with no lines misplaced, or white gaps.

Paper being used: Copy paper

Print Quality: Best

Paper type: Plain

Printer DPI: Max dpi

Thank you in advance for the help!

[sandytechy20]

@Claire200

Welcome to the HP support community.

Manually clean the area around the ink nozzles

1. Gather the following materials:

   • A clean, lint-free cloth or a clean, dry cotton swab

   • Distilled or bottled water

        CAUTION: 

     Do not use tap water because it might contain contaminants that can damage the printhead.

2. Open the ink cartridge access door.

   

3. Wait until the printer is idle and silent before you continue.

4. Lightly press down on the ink cartridge to release it, and then pull the ink cartridge out of its slot.

   

      CAUTION: 

   Do not remove both ink cartridges at the same time. Remove and then clean each ink cartridge one at a time. Do not leave an ink cartridge outside the printer for more than 30 minutes.

5. Hold the ink cartridge by its sides.

   

6. Lightly dampen a clean, lint-free cloth or swab with bottled or distilled water.

7. Clean the face and edges around the ink nozzle with the cloth or swab.

      CAUTION: 

   Do not clean the ink nozzle plate.

   

   1. Nozzle plate - Do not clean

   2. Area surrounding ink nozzle - Do clean

   3. Ink cartridge contacts - Do not clean

8. Wait 10 minutes for the cleaned area to dry before you continue.

9. Hold the ink cartridge by its sides with the contacts toward the printer, insert the ink cartridge into its slot, and then gently push the ink cartridge until it snaps into place.

   

10. Repeat these steps to clean around the nozzles on the other ink cartridge.

11. Close the ink cartridge access door.

You can refer this HP document for more assistance:- Click here

Let me know how it goes.

To thank me for my efforts to help you, please mark my post as an accepted solution so that it benefits several others.

Cheers.

[Claire200]

I will try cleaning it today. I noticed that the print quality diagnostic page, under the clean cartridges area, the black square is printing out wiggly. Very choppy looking. I tried the clean cartridge tool, but it didn't fix it. However I haven't tried to physically clean the cartridges yet, I'' do that and see if it works.

[Claire200]

Didn't work. All my documents are now printing with ghost lines or this grainy texture. Is something wrong with the printer?

[sandytechy20]

@Claire200

This seems to be a hardware issue.

I request you to talk to HP support.

They might have multiple options to help you with this.

1. Click on this link - https://support.hp.com/us-en/contact-hp?openCLC=true
2. Select the country.
3. Enter the serial of your device.
4. Select the country from the drop-down.
5. Click on "Show Options".
6. Fill the web-form. A case number and phone number will now populate for you.

Cheers.