Thin Horizontal Streaking in printouts

[DaleBr]

Hi:

I have a new HP Photosmart 6520 e-Printer-Scanter-Copier.

It has setup correctly,...prints, scans and copies; however, 

the printouts have regular, thin ,horizontal white bars across them, spaced-evenly vertically down the page.

In other words...

The streaking is from left to right...and each streak-line is thin, like a piece of sewing thread.

Theses horizontal lines are spaced vertically: they appear parallel,

and the spacing between these parallel lines appears to be constant.

I have removed and reinserted all print cartridges, aligned the printheads, and cleaned the printheads many times, including recycling the printer (On/Off).  The printouts still have this thin horizontal streaking to them...even in the

Print Quality Diagnostic Report... and the Status Report has some slight fading in the right side of the black rectangle.

The 4 ink cartridge levels are fine...each at roughly at 45%.

This thin streaking occurs evenly-space vertically: the spacing is 9/16"

Is this maybe a problem with the printer's paper roller system ?

It seems that this may be a roller problem, since the streaking-spacing is the same between streaks.

If so, I do not feel that it is the little nylon rollers, since they are at only certain positions along the hoizontal axis.  

The streaking that I have, is continuous from left-to-right (not spaced apart as the nylon rollers are).

Any ideas ?

Thank you

DaleBr

[Advance23]

Hi DaleBr,

I understand that you are getting horizontal lines in your printouts. I will try my best to help you resolve this issue. Here is a document for Fixing Ink Streaks, Faded Prints, and Other Common Print Quality Problems there are different step that could resolve your issue.

Let me know if this helped or if you need further assistance.

Thank you,

[DaleBr]

Hi:
Thank you for your advice, but the article does not address my problem, and the suggestions are invalid , e.g., Solution Seven, Step Five states that if your print head alignment is successful, then you problem is solved...you can stop troubleshooting.

As I stated above, I get parallel horizontal white lines printed approx every 9/16" down in the vertical direction. The lines are clean, as if someone had placed a piece of sewing thread across the sheet. It seems that the main print roller may have a problem, or that the whatever mechanism on which the print cartridge carriage slides may be the problem, since the problem repeats. I have now had this problem on two of these HP 6520 printers. On the previous one, I have also saw vertical banding in the color printouts: the width of each band is the same, as when two of these bands lie next to each other, vertically. There appears to be a thin band where the two wider bands overlap, thus causing darker print along these thin vertical bands. I was at Best Buy tonight, and one of their folks printed out a detailed color picture. I did not see any of the white, horizontal lines, but did see the thin overlap in the vertical banding.

My gut feeling is that the retailer from who I have been purchasing my printer...a total of four bad ones. has been shipped a batch of defective printers.

On top of that...when going through the setup, printing diagnostic reports, etc., not only have the Setup cartridges run out of ink, but an entire new set of cartridges that I had purchased are already half empty ! I am losing money due to a printer not working correctly.

Any ideas ?

DaleBr

[Sooze58]

Yep, I am getting this as well with a brand new Photosmart 5520.  Have done the usual cleaning and printing test pages etc. All looks good on plain paper but the minute I print photos on HP Premium Plus PhotoPaper I get these lines, mostly whitish ones, but the last pic I printed using HP's own Photo Creations the lines came out a darker colour. They run vertically or horizontally depending on what I am printing and are evenly spaced. I get the problem printing from Paint Shop Pro too. The only way to get a good clear print is to put my pictures into a WORD document and print from there! Perfect then, so it shows it is nothing to do with print heads/ink blockages or whatever. To me it seems it is either a software glitch or possibly something to do with the rollers not taking thick paper through smoothly. I am thinking of returning the printer as not fit for purpose - shame, as I love it otherwise.

[DaleBr]

Hi

When I initially printed the color test photo on photo quality paper, things looked great... However, this is because 1) a better type of paper is being used, and. 2) the pixels are crammed together tighter , like on a TV set with a smaller screen ... The quality of the picture on the smaller screen is much better than that viewed on the larger screen.

I made a test doc in Word. To avoid using up the color cartridges' ink, the test was only in Black.
The test consisted of a thin vertical rectangle... about 1/2" wide that was filled in black. On the screen it looked great, but when I printed it , these horizontal, parallel white lines , spaced 9/16" apart showed up.

Another issue:
I was at Best Buy last night asking them to make a test print of a photo, on the 6520. The printout did not have the horizontal white stripes, however, it did have a thin overlap of vertical bands of color as printing went down the page,
I had this problem in one of the 6520s that I returned. So far, I have had four 6520s from Staples that have been bad. I am not blaming Staples.... they may just have gotten a bad batch of printers.
One thing that I don't like is that the guy at Staples told me that if I wanted a refund, that I would get it as credit in a Staples account...that they don 't reimburse my credit card. I don't like this one bit...especially since I do not buy much from them annually. I expect a refund to my card.

Thanx
DaleBr

[Sooze58]

Found your reply and experiment very interesting but it has brought me to the conclusion that your model of printer, and mine, are both not actually fit for the purpose of printing photos, which is the reason I, at least, bought mine.The Troubleshooting advice they give does not sort the printing problem. It is also annoying that my 5520  won't switch back on after being turned off, unless I remove the plug and then plug it back in to the electical socket. Seems it was a bad buy all round and I am not prepared to keep taking my printer back over and over again until I do get one that works. I don't have that kind of patience, or petrol money!

(It's a bummer that you are stuck with keep trying different printers solely from Staples though if they will not do a refund to your card to enable you to go elsewhere - I would be very cross about that if it seems they have a bad batch of printers in stock. Maybe you could point that thought out to them and see if they will relent and give you a proper refund? Good luck anyway.) 

I'm off to research other makes of photo printers now but will keep an eye on this thread in case anyone can come up with a definite solution before I take my printer back to Argos!

[DaleBr]

Hi:

I spoke with Staples Corporate Office this morning, explaining the problem to them.

A very pleasant lady took the information ~9:15 AM

~11:45 AM, I received a call from Staples local store.

(Mind you, the folks at the local Staplkes store were very good with me, but wanted me to take the "Cash Card".)

They refunded me, in full, to my credit card.

I knew that I was going to return their printer, so earlier after talking with Corporate, I went to COSTCO

and bought the HP 6525 all-in-one printer.  It is suppose to be the same as the 6520, just a different

model number on the case/box for COSTCO.  Haven't had time to set it up and test it yet.

The store model had the 6520 number and bar code on the HP label on the bottom of the printer.

With COSTCO, you have to be a member (join)...

But, with COSTCO, you can return an item for up to 2 years, no questions asked.

Since the 6525 is the same as the 6520, I felt that this was a better route to go, do to their return policy,

and that I don't need to buy an extended Service Plan from Staples, Best Buy, ...

The standard printer price at Best Buy, Staples, Office Depot, ...$150...............$130 at COSTCO.

The typical sale price at Best Buy, Staples, Office Depot, COSTCO is ...$120-$130.

The Black Friday price at all was $80.

I had paid $120 at Staples, but got it for $80 today at COSTCO.

I hope it works...if not...I can take it back to COSTCO without any hassle.

DaleBr

[Sooze58]

All sounding good!  Glad you got your refund. Best of luck with the next printer!

I have just installed Photoshop Elements and printed an A4 glossy photo on HP Premium Plus photo paper directly from it  on my 5520 - and -  no lines in it!  It would seem that Paint Shop Pro and HP's own printing programmes do not agree with this printer, but Photoshop (and Word)  does, so I shall  use those in future for printing my pics out.  I have also read on these Forums somewhere that it might be a driver problem that causes banding in photos so could be an idea to try a different driver.

[DaleBr]

Yes... the driver *might* be a problem.

My parents had an HP PhotoSmart C309g printer ... that startied having a "banding" problem with it.

The black cartridge would not print...even new ones.

We tried all sorts of solutions, postings, printhead cleanings, print carriage/cartridge  cleanings, etc ...

but the problem did not go away.

Turns out...the printhead had gone bad.

It much more cost effective to buy a new printer that's up-to-date, than to try to fix the old one.

The new printer was the HP 6520.

Sometimes, no matter how gard youy try, you still can't get no...Satisfaction .

The Rolling Stones were correct !

[Sooze58]

Beginning to think that with all these problems and others I have read about, HP need to get their thinking caps on to come up with something that actually works properly straight out of the box!  Another thing I have noticed is how plasticy and flimsy the newer models seem to be compared with the ones from years ago.....  ah well.......

Have taken a risk and ordered more photo paper and  a set of ink cartridges so hope this printer behaves itself now or that wil be money down the drain.  Best of luck with yours......