HP Photosmart 6520

[NickDG]

Well, after multiple times of opening the top bed for accessing the ink, pulling out the new black XL cartridge and then reinstalling it and closing it up, the bloody printer now prints in black. I have no idea why the old cartridge never worked as it still had about 1/5 of the ink left in it. And, after I initially installed the new cartridge, the printer would not print in black, even after sitting around for a few hours with the power on, plus many attempts to print.

Must be magic.

Oh yeah, the printer is out of warranty according to the s/n & product # on the printer, and as such will likely not get a techie on the phone to answer questions. Not sure if that is accurate or not, but that is what I was led to believe from the HP site. Oy. (Also, the pop-up window about Windows10 is quite silly for those of us using Macs, as every system has an identifier as to what is being used and a company like HP should be able to detect that, or even detect which Win OS is being used.)

I will continue using the printer until it completely refuses to print anything or makes severe noises. Then, I'll review the printers out there and make a more informed decision.

[Lindsay22]

I hope you're joking.  This is the most useless tech support document.  It's like a sales link - problem: black ink not working Solution: buy HP???  Um, no.  

[Dshrewsy]

I fully agree Lindsay. They did not do anything to actually resolve the issue.

[EdMor21]

Yes, I agree, as well.  When I called, I felt like I was dealing with a salesperson instead of a technical support engineer.  Complete waste of my time.  I've already purchased a competitor's printer.  HP lost my trust on this one, and I won't be coming back.

[Lindsay22]

They just called me and said since my printer was outside of the warranty I could buy ANOTHER printer and just buy an extended warranty at a discount.  I just stopped talking because I literally didn't know what to say.  I was like wait.  Um, what?  Is this a joke?  It's not april fools.  So, there's that...

Oh dear.  Lesson learned.  Super expensive paper weight.  Then she lectured me for waiting so long to call.  Thanks.  

[connman]

I did as you suggested. Followed all the steps. No resolution. Contacted HP about my HP Photoshop 6525e (Costco Version of your 6520) and did get HP Printer Technical Support to help me, but they just put me thru the same steps as on your web link. After finishing, I was told that since it out of Warranty, the only other "solution" is that I have to buy a New Printer. This Printer is less than 30 Months old. Not only not very happy, but unlikely to buy another HP Product if that's as long as they last. Compete waste of money.

[GreatKing]

A friend runs a business and ran out of black ink.  She installed a new XL cartridge.  No black printing from any of the programs we tried (Word, Outlook, Chrome) except for Acrobat Reader.  It has a checkbox that allows you to select black/grayscale printing and it works like it should.

I checked the printer drivers and it had two Microsoft driver files, not HP.  I uninstalled the printer and reinstalled the most current software if could find (December 2015).  It left the Microsoft drivers intact and added two HP fax drivers.  The exercise was futile, since it still did not print black.

The printer is connected to a desktop via USB and set up to print wirelessly from other machines.   I tried to have the wireless settings printed out, but all I got was a blank page. 

Having read some of the other posts, I agree with the conclusion that HP printers are pretty well useless and will advise my friend to buy a different brand printer.  It is a pity since she has a box-full of unused ink cartridges.

[DB-r]

I have the same problem. Thinking I was "nuts" and bought the wrong ink. Not the case. I order my ink directly from HP. I tried putting the old black cartridge back in (it was printing but not very well), so I am beginning to suspect that this is more than a cartridge problem. Also, I'm out of warranty by about 2 months. Go figure! My thought was averaging how much this printer has cost me in 14 months between the cost of the pritner and the cost of ink. I went through all the same steps for troubleshooting and it prints perfectly in color. Glad to know that I am not totally off the wall. I noted that HP charges $25 for a consult, so I might as well go ahead and throw away that new black cartridge I bought because if it does not work then, I will know its the printer and not me. I refuse to keep wasting cartridges. I'm like Stephy97, I have been using HP for a long time, but I may never buy another one. 

[DB-r]

I sure would like to hear what you have to say about this printer. It is expensive to continue to run test pages.

[GreatKing]

Follow up:

My friend ignored my advice and bought a used 6520 printer because she had all these unused cartridges left.  The second printer has the same problem: not printing black ink.  She then proceeded to uninstall all HP programs listed in the Programs and Features folder in the Control Panel.  She then downloaded PS6520_1315-1.exe (HP Photosmart 6520 e-All-in-One Printer Full Feature Software and Drivers) from Software and Driver download page for the 6520 on the HP website and installed it.  The printer works fine now.

The difference between what she did and what I did was that she uninstalled the HP programs first, while I installed the programs on top of the existing ones.