Display screen for Officejet 6500 dissolved

[montanadriver]

Try Paul the PCFixer Guy's work around.  Forget HP, they have written Officejet 6500 owners off.  Their solution, buy a new one.  Paul's work around got me up and running in about 30-minutes following his step by step instructions.  While it's not 100%, it is very readable, probably at 95%.  Guess I could count the pixels, but well, I'm happy.  I have religated it to a back up printer.  My family clan (estensive computer types scattered over many time zones) has been advised of this action by HP and most will never own another HP, not because they have all bad stuff, just because the company has a complete disregard for their customers.  My feelings are they have too many.  I'm definitely going to help them out in that regard.   😞  Good luck, montanadriver, now a Cannon owner (sweet machine).  -b-

[stacyray11]

Thanks! We went ahead and bought a Canon a month ago. Love it!! I, as well as my family will not own a HP device again either. It seems like if the same issue is such wide spread, any GOOD company would fix it! I have now wiped Dell and HP off my list!!

[humh3]

Thank you so much!!

I did as you say and followed all the steps... and ... WORKS!! wooooooooooooooooo PERFECT AS A NEW PRINTER!!!

THANKS  AGAIN!!

MY Printer Model  HP OfficeJet 6500 All in One White and Black

[Wolfbitt]

It worked - thanks!

I agree with the assessment that HP knew about this and ignored it. I have had about 10 or 12 HP printers and 4 HP laptops, but now moving on to other pastures....

[CallMeBob]

Awesome advice Paul/PCFixerGuy, thank you.  I wasn't expecting to post so I didn't count, but I had hardly any pixels showing when I began.  The display was completely unreadable.  I went through the steps using a screwdriver and the eraser on a #2 pencil -- not the hardest eraser -- and got around half of the pixels back but couldn't improve on that after several more attempts.

So I tried to get creative.  I took an old piece of neoprene, about 1/10 of an inch thick, and cut it to fit over the ribbon cable contacts.  Then I used a screen spline tool that I could press down on the neoprene and roll back and forth along the width of the cable.

But even this resulted in hardly any improvement. 

Then I started thinking about how adhesive gets soft and pliable when heated -- I've often removed labels etc. by heating them with a paint stripping heat gun.  So I got the gun out, turned it on low, and waved it back and forth a few inches above the ribbon cable, checking the cable temp FREQUENTLY with my finger.  The last thing I wanted to do was begin melting the nonmetallic part of the cable.  When it was a little warmer than what I would call "warm,"  but far from being too hot to hold a finger on it, I turned off the gun, replaced the neoprene and pressed again, hard, with the spline roller above the contacts along the width of the cable.  I was careful to hold the neoprene in place so as not to have it squirt out from under the tool, as I think an unprotected tool would easily cut the cable.  I also used the neoprene and spline tool at the LCD end of the cable as that is connected by adhesive in the same fashion as at the circuit board end.  When I decided I was done pressing, I carefilly lifted the neoprene away and let the circuit board and display sit untouched for a few minutes, allowing it to cool so the adhesive would "set" again.

I reconnected the board to the printer, powered up, and EVERY PIXEL WORKED.  And they still work after putting it all back together.

A pain, to be sure.  A very crappy design, to be sure.  But, for now at least, I have my entire display back.  We'll see how long it lasts.

[tgnohp]

I couldn't agree with you more about HP's discregard for their customers!  They just want you to buy a new one or buy the extended service plan.  Due to some recent, very frustrating experiences with HP customer service (all the way up to Executive Customer Relations), I will never, ever, buy another HP product again.

Now I have a printer with a screen I can't see.  I'm going to try Paul the PCFixer's guys method and see if I can have some success

[montanadriver]

tgnohp, Couldn't agree more. I too have left the HP ship after many years of using their products. When walking by the computer display section I now  just walk on by the HP section to another brand that does in fact support and stand by their product. Its kind of sad becaure my niece's husband just switched his career over to HP and I would like to support family as I did in his last company for many years.

I tried Paul/PCFixerGuy's workaround and reclaimed 75% of the screen enough to use it. So glad he found the solution that HP's engineers couldn't or perhalps wouldn't for money hunger. CallMeBob seems to have improved the proceedure from what I see and it does make sense. When I get back to home base I'll give it a shot. Sad fact: I like the HP Officejet 6500 a lot. 'Good printer, just with a manufacturing flaw which could have been resolved by the company.  Like the 1/10/100 principle if this had been resolved at the 1 level all the bad press and sharing with my friends and associates could have been curtailed.  😞

I switched over to the Cannon Pixma Printers which seem equivelant to the HPs and so far have been satisfied both with the products and the customer support. As CallMeBob said though, ' We'll see how long it lasts.'. 🙂 -b-

[montanadriver]

As a follow up to my post, I'm glad the forum exists as the workarounds given by the users were great if mitigating the problem and I appreciate them taking the time to share.  🙂  -b-

[beamissionary]

Hello Paul,

Great post!  Followed your directions & have most of my display.

Thanks for the clear step-by-step instructions & the pics.

[tgm1204]

I'm done with HP.......I have the disolving LCD and now the priner is useless........would have been easy top just print or send a copy of the setup commnads and I could have run in the dark....Ive gone to cannon and Im not coming back......

shame its so easy