[HP Photosmart C4480] Resetting NVM

[angerion]

Hi,

I've always been satisfied by this printer, simple to setup and really "plug and play".

I recently started to print more often and suddenly, the printer complained about an "Incompatible cartridge".

It was very weird because I was printing a 50 pages document and the error occured at the 9th or 10th page without any reason.

I tried replacing the cartridge with another one, cleaning them up and rebooting the printer : no change.

I googled the error message and found doing a "Semi-Full Reset" could help .. without success.

I tried every combination at the "Enter Special Key Combo" and found several menus.

I found some jokes like "Underware" and "Fix me!" (I love easter eggs) but also some very promising items like "clear nvm", several "disp xXx ID", "selftest", "counter", "enter serial number"...

As my title suggests, my last attempt to solve my issue is to reset the NVM.

Doing it should reset all parameters to their default value and the printer should return to the same state as when I bought it.

The fact is that when I do "clear NVM", the printer displays the following message : "It is not default serial number. Failed to reset NVM".

I checked the serial number printed on the back of the printer and compared it with what "serial number" (Information menu) displays.

They match but the latter is longer and I don't know where the last 4 numbers come from.

I found the menu which let me change the serial number but as I don't know what "default" serial to enter, I'm stuck.

So I would like to know what serial number to input or more generally how to reset the non volatile memory of my printer.

Should the instructions depends on the serial number of my printer, you can send me a PM.

I hope my post is clear enough and may help other people solving this infamous "Incompatible cartridge" error.

If you need more info, just let me know.

Regards,

[angerion · Accepted solution]

I finally found an easy way to reset the NVM.

I put an SD card in the printer, held on the Cancel (red X) and the Power Button and pressed the Blue, Grey and Green button (in that order) to have access to the "Underware" menu.

There, I went into the "photo menu" and pressed OK on the "dump nvm=>file" item.

I put the SD card in my laptop and edited the NVM_0001.DMP file (in the NVM2 folder) with an hexadecimal editor.

I replaced every value by 0 so the NVM dump was full of zeroes.

I renamed the file to NVM_RAW.DMP and put the SD card in the printer.

I did the same as above to get access to the "photo menu" but instead of dumping the NVM to a file, I did the opposite with "dump file=>nvm".

I restarted the printer and voilà!

NB: It didn't solve the "Incompatible cartridge" issue but at least, internal counters are now at 0 !!

[Supreet14]

Same problem with HP DESKJET 3515 cartridge error. Customer care executives are not willing to tell me default serial no to perform NVM reset. Anybody have idea how to locate default serial no of printer?