HP Photosmart B010b - CMY composite black has green tint

[FloeHetling]

I'll go numbers to track my steps. So:

1) I've got my B010 from friend. Abandoned for two years. I threw away cartridges immediately, bought a new stock of 178's

2) I knew that he used it only once or twice from purchase. Thrown cartridges were the only from bought. However, I expected nozzles to be clogged. So first thing I've done was ejecting a printhead and clearing it by dipping nozzles in HP service-grade cleaning liquid for 30 minutes, doing a little drops of it on top grids of cartridge seats helped me to clean all the ink tract. After drying for a hour and printhead cleaning process I had a perfect-printing head.

No stripes on self-test page, bright, clear and vibrant CMYK.

3) I've ran a first print - a color card of CMYK combinations, SWOP colors, grayscale. Gah... A green tint on blacks!

4) Reinstalled all the software (uninstall, 3rd level cleanup, CCleaner), rebooted PC - no effect

5) Booted to 7x64, installed drivers and tried there - no effect

6) Various ICC profiles, running printhead cleaning - no effect

7) Disabling printer color management and setting Photoshop to manage colors - no effect

😎 ...then I ran a black-and-white copy. Perfect black!

9) I printed test page again. That, from printer toolbox, with 4 color squares. Perfect black! Cyan, Magenta and Yellow are also perfect, no stripes, no leakage. Solid and bright.

10) A killer move. I took the self-test page from step 9, placed it on flatbed and ran a color copy. That eliminated PC as cause - a black square, that had been printed nearly a minute ago by same printer - had that %#$@& green tint 😞

Then I figured a possible cause. Composite black consists of three colors - cyan, magenta, yellow. When it lacks magenta - it gains green tint. But according steps 2 and 9 my magenta looks perfect!

How can I do some kind of hardware reset? Maybe, firmware upgrade or everything else?

I hadn't touched printhead since step 2, can its contacts be the cause? But... self test runs perfect. I know when it isn't - I had a lot of time dealing with Deskjet D1663 and its 121 cartridges - but those were remanufactored. Since that hell I only use originals.

Finally - can I force my HP B010 to use black cartridge for black and grayscale or it sounds like nonesense?

Thank you for reading all of that 'engrish' and for your assistance in advance.

[Jeet_singh]

@FloeHetling,

Thanks for reaching out to the HP Support Forums. I’d be glad to help with your printer issue 🙂

After reviewing your post thoroughly, I understand you have already tried all possible troubleshooting steps and unfortunately nothing has helped to resolve this issue. 

In this scenario, I would recommend you contact our HP support team to get printer service or possible upgrade options.

HP support can be reached on www.hp.com/contacthp

Select the product type.

Enter the serial number of your device or select let HP detect your product option.

Select the country from the drop-down.

You should see the HP phone support number or Chat option listed.

Let me know how it goes and you have a great day!

If you wish to show appreciation for my efforts, mark my post as Accept as Solution. Your feedback counts!

Cheers!

[FloeHetling]

Occasionally, I have a chance to test a new solution for this problem.

I'll borrow different printhead in a couple weeks, let's see if it'll change anything.

--edited--

P.S.: Too sad Photosmart B010 must use composite black when it's no need in that.

Deskjet D1600~ uses only black cartridge on grayscales and that's a win, IMO.

We definitely need an option in printer's onboard settings but there will be no one for old tech. Sad.