Officejet Pro L7780 Printhead Problem

[LidNe]

The warranty ends date is on the printhead in the location shown in the picture below:

The date is in the format YYYY/MM/DD.

If that date hasn't passed, and you haven't used non-HP ink, then you should be covered under warranty. Please confirm your printhead warranty date.

[tphagstrom]

[LidNe]

Yep, tphagstrom, your printheads are in warranty. Send me your contact information (daytime phone) in a private email please. To send a private email, click my name in the left column, then on the next page click 'send this user a private message'.

[Vake]

The print job does not get stuck. The printer will not feed the paper when using the PC Win. 7 whereas it will feed properly and print from my MAC without any problem. Only when I attempt to print from the PC it does not feed paper and sends an error message that it is out of paper. I do not see how it can be a hardware problem. I think it must be a driver problem.

[LidNe]

Hi Vake:

I agree, if you are printing okay from your Mac, but not from your Win 7 PC, it isn't a hardware problem. The queue I'm talking about the job being stuck in is the printer queue, which is how your Win 7 software handles the print job. The doc I linked to above https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c05368413 (Link Updated 05/01/2017)  has a Win 7 section - click the '+' next to Win 7 to open that section. It starts off by talking about hardware problems, but skip that section and try downloading the Print Diagnostics utility. There are also steps for clearing the print queue - again, this is a software thing, not hardware.

[Vake]

Ok thanks, I will try it, though I did go through the diagnostic with an HP tech online and in the end she could only recommend a new printer.

[tphagstrom]

Thanks for your help.  I am still waiting for a phone call...

[tphagstrom]

Still waiting for the call.

[Mercey]

I had the same problems as everyone else here - blank lines in the printout and, in my case, only with Yellow and Black ink.  I called a tech support company (iYogi) and they guaranteed that they could fix the problem (I was skeptical) but I promised to pay $99 if they could since that would be cheaper than buying a new printer.  1/2 hour later they admitted it was probably a printer problem.  Not one to give up I thought I would at least try to clean the heads.  I pulled out the Y/B printhead out of the printer and it was all gummed up with ink - Ah Ha!  I got some NON-ACETONE nail polish from my wife, and cleaned the head with a soft, non-lint cloth.  At first I thought I was dissolving part of the plastic printhead but I finally started to see clean brass underneath all the gooey ink.  When I finished cleaning (meaning no more ink was getting on the cloth), I wiped it a final time to make sure there was no residue left.  I put the printhead back in the printer and the printer went through a calibration process.  When completed (for testing purposes) I made a copy of a document with all the colors - it was better but not perfect.  BUT!!!!  After a few pages of printing things were back to normal.  Total cost - maybe 15-cents for the cloth and nail polish remover.

My theory is this; over time the residue ink left over from a print job is slowly drying which clogs the printhead spray ports (my name for them); the more they clog the harder it is for them to print so the problem just gets worse-sort of like rust in a pipe.  But by cleaning them, and assuming the residue left in the ports was still gooey, (but lossened up a bit with the nail polish) they just needed a little pressure to clean them out. 

Now, HP surely isn't going to tell you to do this because they won't sell you new printheads if they do, but I'm sure they'll tell you the warranty will be void if you do.  It appears though that their warranty policy isn't any good anyway so you've got nothing to lose especially if the printer isn't working and you're looking at the very real possibility of having to buy a new printer anyway.  I can't help but wonder what the "Clean Printhead" function is doing and to listen to the printer, you'd think it was something like wiping your feet off before you come into your house!  But wiping them on what?  So, try a little NON-ACETONE nail polish - IT JUST MIGHT WORK!  It did for me.

[tphagstrom]

OK.  I finally received a call from Jim in Boise, Idaho.  Jim was very helpful.  We went through a series of diagnostics after which he had replacement printheads sent to me.  I installed the replacement printheads and to my surprise they fixed the problem, now the printer is operational again.  Despite advise from the call center in India to buy a new printer, Jim was able to get this machine back online for which I am grateful.  Thanks Jim and Neil!