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Author Topic: My printer won't print red or yellow.  (Read 5118 times)

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Loveshack

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My printer won't print red or yellow.
« on: January 11, 2011, 12:51:06 AM »
Hey everyone,
I have an HP Deskjet 3650 printer.  I recently tried to use a refilled tricolor ink cartridge but it wouldn't print any red or yellow.  I replaced it with a new tri-color ink cartridge.  Same problem.  When I try to print photos, they look like they START printing okay, IE the top part of the photo looks normal, but then it takes on a greenish hue and it's obvious that something is amiss.  Test page only prints black text and blue squares.  Anyone know what's up.

Currently running Windows 7, 64-bit.
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BlueCross

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Re: My printer won't print red or yellow.
« Reply #1 on: January 11, 2011, 01:11:48 AM »
The BBC reported that a truck carrying red paint collided with a truck carrying purple paint.  Both drivers are said to be marooned.

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Hoopy Frood

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Re: My printer won't print red or yellow.
« Reply #2 on: January 11, 2011, 04:04:18 AM »
My HP printer started wigging out one day as well. It wouldn't print yellow.

I got a different printer.

So, IME, you might be facing a printer that's decided to just give up. HP printers don't seem to have the quality they used to.
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Swash

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Re: My printer won't print red or yellow.
« Reply #3 on: January 22, 2011, 01:04:18 AM »
Could be the print head.  Sadly HP don't generally have replacement print heads available.  Canon are better for that sort of thing.

I'll take it as given that you've run the head cleaning utility under the printer's properties page a few times.  When that doesn't fix the problem it's either a major driver problem (so uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers from a fresh download from the HP website should fix it) or a major hardware problem in which case you're up for a new printer.

As far as new printers go, I'd recommend something that uses individual carts for each colour.  You generally get more ink in them than you would in the tricolour cart.

HP seem to have improved somewhat in the last year or two.  Lexmark have been making some changes too, stepping away from their "ultra-expensive carts that include the print head" model, though I've not seen what effect that's had on print quality.

Canon seem to have stayed pretty much where they used to be.  Epson have improved significantly too.  But don't touch Brother.  Their laser printers are fine, but their inkjets are kind of flakey.

This is all based on my own experience, anyway.  I used to sell the things and got feedback from a lot of customers and now I repair the things so I see a lot of the problems first hand.
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BlueCross

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Re: My printer won't print red or yellow.
« Reply #4 on: January 22, 2011, 03:14:30 AM »
HP (years ago) used to be boss in quite a few things; calculators, printers, high-end techie analyzers, etc.  Then I moved on, and they got worse, way worse. (Correlation there?  Could be...)

One of my 'tipping points' in finally abandoning most of HP's products was when a Laser printer I had stopped working because the paper sensor went out, which meant it would never feed paper.  Change the paper sense?  No chance in hell; it was in a 'bad' place, integrated with some other hardware, and the cost of replacing it was half the cost of the printer.

I was pissed.

Yes; yes, I was.

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"for the record, I'm not some kind of psychotic provincialist." - Than (ed: Cit. required)
"I lost my game of NT: Garry's fault. Global warming: Garry's fault. End-of-the-Universe: Garry's fault. See it always fits. Anyway, what is Garry up to? No good I bet." - Laszlo
"As for your French, it's probably better than the average English-speaking Frenchman's Finnish! (Or something.)" - wa
"I'm back at Thunderfalls now and every minute thinking of poking a bandit in the eye with a fishhook." - Preyveil
"and yet still nothing has made it to BC's signature!"-KMD

Morb

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Re: My printer won't print red or yellow.
« Reply #5 on: January 22, 2011, 12:23:09 PM »
Hmm. Maybe try recalibrating the printer and check that the printer profiles haven't gotten wonky... I seem to remember that the calibrating business might solve some problems with colors, but can't really recall whether it actually ever helped.
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