OfficeJet 6500A Plus won't print Black - Solution

[swbca]

My 6500A Plus will not print black even with new cartridges.  There are Reset instruction to fix this for the 6500 but the reset instructions dont work on the 6500A Plus.

How to reset the 6500A Plus

Thanks

[Bob_Headrick]

Try the troubleshooting steps in this document.  If that fails then see this post.

[swbca · Accepted solution]

I paid $20 to HP for this information.   They said the secret to getting to the Support Menu is not on the web for the 6500A Plus printer.

My printer stopped printing black, even with a new black cartridge.  I had the printer for 4 days past warranty when this happened.  Was on my second or 3rd Xlarge black cartridge.

Steps to fix it.

1. Remove the cartridges

2. Remove the Cartridge Holder / Carrier, lift the big lever to release it.

3. Clean the contacts on the cartridges with water and cloth.

4. Clean contacts and all other surfaces on the Cartrdge Holder with water. mine was all caked up with ink - it filled the sink with black water.

5. Clean the copper contacts on the printer that interface to the Cartridge Holder . . these were covered with ink too.

We then performed Cartridge alignement and it "Failed" printer still did not work.

[pyroviper]

this worked for me too!! thank you thank you thank you!!!!!

[Carolyn44]

Thank you. Thank you. I have spent about two hours trying to fix this.

[cwilliamc46]

I can't get to the Setup when the system failure blinks.  Hitting the cancel, or setup does NOTHING.  I need to reset the printer......I boiled the print head for 5 minutes to clean it out, put it bak in, replaced cartridges, and still the system failure is on the screen, and I don't know which buttons to push to get it in to setup mode?

[Headbear]

Thank you so much for getting us into the super secret HP fix area...you made that so easy...bypass that silly cleaning process and get right to the reset...

[peggyc]

Did this really work? I replaced all my cartridges including the black and couldn't get black ink.

Did the cleaning via the print utility twice. The test page appeared to print black but my document text was printing in blue instead of black.

thankyou.

[Bob_Headrick]

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@peggyc wrote:

Did this really work? I replaced all my cartridges including the black and couldn't get black ink.

Did the cleaning via the print utility twice. The test page appeared to print black but my document text was printing in blue instead of black.[ snip]

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Try the troubleshooting steps in this document.  If that fails then see this post.

[Headbear]

This is the critical step: Perform a Partial Reset from the Support Menu

1. Find the Curved Back Arrow by pressing the little forward arrow ( the Curved Back Arrow is not visilble from home screen)

2. Go back to home screen

3. tap the location 4 times where the Curved Back Arrow was showing on Step 1 (its not illuminated now).

4. You are now in the Support Menu. Go forward to Resets Menu. Find and perform a Partial Reset.

5. If the printer does not restart in 30 seconds hit the Power Button.

6. After going through the setup procedures , Language etc. The printer should now work. This step fixed mine so it would print black again.

(I have reposted this from the solution posted by someone earlier...This worked perfectly without going thru the "cleaning" process which just sounded time consuming and worrysome.  Your settings are saved so it was an easy way to fix whatever seems to be ailing the printer.)