What should diagnostic reports look like?

[Bob_Headrick]

I would skip the cleaning cycles at this point, you have already done all three levels of cleaning and run the extra pages of yellow.  You also do not need wait days, a few hours would allow the cartridge to recover as much as possible.

[cag8f]

OK I ran one last cleaning and printed a diagnostic page, but the yellow ink was still essentially completely missing. So I replaced the ink with my spare cartridge, and the HP application on my computer immediately congratulated me for using genuine HP ink.  I printed two diagnostic pages, and the yellow ink seems to be working as expected now.

So what lesson do I take away from this?  Always use genuine HP ink?  I actually learned that lesson at my last place of employment.  I was the IT manager of a small school, and we used mainly HP ink jet printers.  Some printers used third party ink (I live in Thailand, where that is the norm), and others used genuin ink.  The printers that used genuine ink had far fewer print problems.

Thanks again for your help.  You'll get some thumbs up from me.

[cag8f]

Actually, one last  question for the future:  how long can I expect this color ink cartridge to last?  I really don't print much.  Because I don't print much, I have a reminder set so that I ensure I print out at least one diagnostic page per week.  Most weeks, this is the only thing I print.

Thanks.

[Bob_Headrick]

The study here discusses reliability of HP cartridges vs. reman/refills, it may confirm what you already know....  I once donated an Officejet printer to the local school.  SOme time later the teacher called me and said it was not printing color properly.  I went to look, and they had a defective refilled cartridge.  He replaced it with another, which was also missing one color. The third cartridge had some issues but could be recovered with some cleaning cycles.  I asked him why they used the refilled cartridges and he said they were cheaper.  I asked if they were 1/3 the price, since it took 3 cartridges to get one working.

As for the expected cartridge life, it can be a long time if you do not use much ink.  I would not suggest running a diagnostic page every week, probably once a month is plenty.  Also, do not run cleaning cycles unless necessary (which is rare for HP cartridges).  One other consideration - if you use an outlet switch to turn off the printer it will use more ink at startup.  For best results the printer should always be plugged into a live outlet and only the printer's power switch used to turn it on and off.

[cag8f]

>> I asked him why they used the refilled cartridges and he said they were cheaper. I asked if they were 1/3 the price, since it took 3 cartridges to get one working.

Completely agree, and I saw that first hand in my school.  Not only did the refilled-ink policy use more ink/cartridges, it also resulted in a lot of man-hours and productivity wasted while non-tech end-users (the teachers) struggled with the printing errors caused by the third-party ink.  

>> As for the expected cartridge life, it can be a long time if you do not use much ink. I would not suggest running a diagnostic page every week, probably once a month is plenty.

OK I'll drop it down.  It was actually at once a month, but then I started to experience these color issues and thought it might be because I wasn't using the printer enough.

>> Also, do not run cleaning cycles unless necessary (which is rare for HP cartridges).

Good to know, thanks.

>> One other consideration - if you use an outlet switch to turn off the printer it will use more ink at startup. For best results the printer should always be plugged into a live outlet and only the printer's power switch used to turn it on and off.

Mine is plugged in to a live outlet, but this good to know.

Thanks so much for the info.  This was a great learning experience.  I was nearly ready to ditch this printer and HP printers in-general, but I hope now it won't come to that.