Extremely poor (unusable) print quality on HP Envy 7640

[fvancrae]

I am not able to print a page with black text or barcodes where everything is readable.

I have had this issue since I purchased the printer.

Now my second HP62 inkt cartridge is empty but most of the ink went to cartridge cleaning pages

which do not solve the issue (entirely)

Do I have a bad device or is the printer model/cartridge this bad?

Note: Very low usage: I only print once every 2 weeks

Note 2: I only use HP inkt cartridges

[Bob_Headrick]

The Envy 7640 prints excellent text, something is not right with your printer or cartridge.  

I would suggest printing a diagnostic page as shown in Solution Seven of the document here.  Please describe the result (or better yet, scan the test page and attach it here using the "Photos" button above).

Follow these steps to print and evaluate a Print Quality Diagnostic report.

Step 1: Print a Print Quality Diagnostic report

Follow these steps to print a Print Quality Diagnostic report.

1. Load U.S. Letter or A4 size, unused, plain white paper into the input tray.
2. On the printer control panel, swipe the display to the left, and then touch Setup (). The Setup menu displays.
3. Touch Reports, and then touch Print Quality Report. A Print Quality Diagnostic page prints.

Figure : Example of a Print Quality Diagnostic report with no defects

Figure : Example of a Print Quality Diagnostic report with defects

[fvancrae]

Attached you can find scans of the page I needed to print barcode and barcode numbers are unreadable on both attempts.

You can also see the result of the 3 level cleaning.

The ink is probably used up during the print of the 3rd page however. I have absolutely no black anymore now.

Ink level displayed by the printer is ~15 % Before the first clean it showed ~50%.

In practice I canonly print very few pages. Per page I need I need to retry a lot and I need to clean a lot.

So now I am not sure what to do

1. Buy an HP62XL and hope the cartridge is longer useable

2. Buy an HP62 because the issue is related to dried up ink in opened cartridges

3. Return the printer for maintenace/replacement

[Bob_Headrick]

There are a few things to check.  

• You mention the printer is only used every couple weeks.  Is the printer turned off when not in use?  Is the printer always connected to a live outlet?  If the printer is turned off from an external switch, such as an outlet switch, the printheads may not have time to properly park.  Thic can lead to the printheads drying out.  The printer should always be connected to a live outlet and only the printer's power switch used to turn it off.  (I leave my printers powered on and let the aotomatic power save feature kick in.  This puts the printer into a low power state but keeps it ready to print.
• Is the printer still in warranty?  You mention the issue has been present since you purchased the printer.  It is possible the rubber cap that protects the cartrdiges while not printing was dislodged from its proper place To get warranty coverage you will need to go to the Contact HP page, then enter the information for your printer. 

The results you are having are certainly not "normal".  I would expect only one of five cartridges to ever require any cleaning during their entire life (other than the automatic cleaning that happens at startup and shutdown of the printer).  

[fvancrae]

Thanks for the helpful feedback.

I rarely cut the printer power from the outlet.

I don't expect this to be the issue however. The heads should already be parked since I cut the power without or long after printer activity

My printer is just over 1 year old and apparantly not in warranty anymore.

Do you know if the business line (officejet) is better for this kind of ink issues?

I hesitated long to decide which to purchase.

Or is switching to a laser printer a better choice?

Thanks again for the feedback

Frederic