topic Re: Need Help With Printer in Electronics

Need Help With Printer

coffee drinker — Wed, 24 Dec 2014 17:56:37 GMT

We bought the HP computer that was the TSV a couple weeks ago. Set up went sort of OK, but now the printer will not print black & white copies. Color printing is OK. It seems like the printer is not picking up the black cartridge. At first we thought we needed a new cartridge, but that didn't work. Cleaned print heads, nothing. Called HP and the guy we spoke to was no help. Before I call HP again, I would appreciate any help someone may offer.

Thank you.

Re: Need Help With Printer

ValuSkr — Wed, 24 Dec 2014 18:00:35 GMT

So if you print a document with just words, a page will go through the printer but have nothing on it?

Re: Need Help With Printer

Alexa6352 — Wed, 24 Dec 2014 18:03:07 GMT

The same thing happened to me. I thought I was going crazy..I couldn't fix it. At the time Christine from HP was still working for QVC and she has a Facebook page .I asked her for help and she was very nice and she told me what I could do. It was a little complicated and I am not that good with such things. My printer was a few years old and I just thought..get rid of it and so I did.The new printer I bought was about $110 dollars and it was worth it to just buy a new one.

Re: Need Help With Printer

hckynut — Wed, 24 Dec 2014 21:16:20 GMT

Have you tried different "preference" settings? How about a "deep cleaning process"? I do not have an HP printer but most have these fearures maybe using different terminology. When printing color, most printers still need to use the black ink, depending of course on what you are printing. I really do not understand why an HP tech could not help you, especially since this must be a newer model printer. Printers should not be difficult for a tech person to fix a problem. If you just recently got it, doesn't QVC have the end of January return policy in effect? If an HP tech can't figure out what seems like a simple problem? No way I would keep their printer.

Re: Need Help With Printer

AndiO — Wed, 24 Dec 2014 21:32:34 GMT

The same thing happened to me a while back with my HP printer. I tried everything, including powering down and reinstalling the driver. I actually went out and bought a new one. Then I completely shut it down and unplugged it, in preparation for installing my new printer. For some reason I decided to hook it back up and give it one more try. (I have no idea why I did this as I thought I had tried everything.) I would say that it had been unplugged for at least half an hour. To my amazement, it worked perfectly again. Hope that works for you too!

Re: Need Help With Printer

judgejudith — Wed, 24 Dec 2014 22:16:20 GMT

I had a similar problem with and HP printer and also found that completely unplugging it from the wall socket cured the problem...it appears that unplugging resets the printer. I left mine unplugged for just a few minutes. Also, I know on some of the newer printers you cannot use generic ink cartridges as the printer will only read a genuine "HP" cartridge. Good Luck

Re: Need Help With Printer

coffee drinker — Wed, 24 Dec 2014 23:37:42 GMT

Thank you all for your responses. To --answer/comment on your replies --

The PC was the TSV bought from QVC, not the printer, also, the printer is wireless, so there's no plug to unplug. HP rep was a waste of time. Really frustrated if we have to purchase a new printer after spending over $100 for replacement cartridges. I can return the color ones, but opened the black cartridges. It never ends!!!

Re: Need Help With Printer

glb613 — Wed, 24 Dec 2014 23:57:15 GMT

On 12/24/2014 coffee drinker said:
Thank you all for your responses. To --answer/comment on your replies --

The PC was the TSV bought from QVC, not the printer, also, the printer is wireless, so there's no plug to unplug. HP rep was a waste of time. Really frustrated if we have to purchase a new printer after spending over $100 for replacement cartridges. I can return the color ones, but opened the black cartridges. It never ends!!!

There has to be a plug for the electricity.

Re: Need Help With Printer

ValuSkr — Thu, 25 Dec 2014 00:36:27 GMT

On 12/24/2014 glb613 said:
On 12/24/2014 coffee drinker said:
Thank you all for your responses. To --answer/comment on your replies --

The PC was the TSV bought from QVC, not the printer, also, the printer is wireless, so there's no plug to unplug. HP rep was a waste of time. Really frustrated if we have to purchase a new printer after spending over $100 for replacement cartridges. I can return the color ones, but opened the black cartridges. It never ends!!!

There has to be a plug for the electricity.

I thought the same thing. Coffee Drinker, try unplugging, then plug back in, and see what happens.

Re: Need Help With Printer

Lynnj — Thu, 25 Dec 2014 00:39:48 GMT

John's reply above is probably what will solve this - click on printer preferences on the computer. In there you will change the settings to print black and white. You can set this as your default, and it will print everything that way. Such is what is probably happening with you now, where color is set to default, and everything is printing in color.

Also, another way, but I think this will need to be done each time you print. When you hit print, and thing pops up and shows where you are printing to (HP 5600 - as example). Open print preview from there and change the preferences. But I am not sure you can set things to default from there, so you may have to do that each time.

Did the printer come with a user manual? If so, look up setting printer preferences section. If no manual, logon to HP.com, search for your printer model, and then look for online user manual.

Re: Need Help With Printer

nomless — Thu, 25 Dec 2014 00:48:02 GMT

You don't have to plug it into an electric outlet for power??? So it runs on battery??? I've never heard of as battery-operated printer. Interesting.

Re: Need Help With Printer

pattypeep — Thu, 25 Dec 2014 00:50:01 GMT

We have a wireless HP and it does have a plug.

Re: Need Help With Printer

Lynnj — Thu, 25 Dec 2014 00:50:58 GMT

On 12/24/2014 nomless said: You don't have to plug it into an electric outlet for power??? So it runs on battery??? I've never heard of as battery-operated printer. Interesting.

I am not sure about this printer, I don't have it. But (for example) I have a scanner that connects to the computer via a USB cable. The scanner is powered by the computer by being plugged in via USB.

So it could be possible that this is connected to the computer via USB to draw electricity.

Re: Need Help With Printer

glb613 — Thu, 25 Dec 2014 01:20:50 GMT

On 12/24/2014 Lynnj said:
On 12/24/2014 nomless said: You don't have to plug it into an electric outlet for power??? So it runs on battery??? I've never heard of as battery-operated printer. Interesting.

I am not sure about this printer, I don't have it. But (for example) I have a scanner that connects to the computer via a USB cable. The scanner is powered by the computer by being plugged in via USB.

So it could be possible that this is connected to the computer via USB to draw electricity.

Not the model that was the TSV. I think some don't know the difference between unplugging from the power source, which often can correct problems, and unplugging the USB cable from the computer.

If I had a printer that didn't print correctly right out of the box, I would return it.

Re: Need Help With Printer

hckynut — Thu, 25 Dec 2014 03:41:26 GMT

On 12/24/2014 judgejudith said:
I had a similar problem with and HP printer and also found that completely 0unplugging it from the wall socket cured the problem...it appears that unplugging resets the printer. I left mine unplugged for just a few minutes. Also, I know on some of the newer printers you cannot use generic ink cartridges as the printer will only read a genuine "HP" cartridge. Good Luck

Guess I should say this with each problem with any/all newer electricronic devices: The VERY FIRST THING TO TRY IS: Either reboot/reset the device as this solves a multitude of problems. Doing this recalibrates many internal components to "a default setting". Or you can UNPLUG the device for say-----30 seconds and replug tonrestart it. Do this with EVERY device as your first step and?? You could save yourself a wholeblot of time and frustations.

Re: Need Help With Printer

hckynut — Thu, 25 Dec 2014 03:54:35 GMT

On 12/24/2014 coffee drinker said:
Thank you all for your responses. To --answer/comment on your replies --

The PC was the TSV bought from QVC, not the printer, also, the printer is wireless, so there's no plug to unplug. HP rep was a waste of time. Really frustrated if we have to purchase a new printer after spending over $100 for replacement cartridges. I can return the color ones, but opened the black cartridges. It never ends!!!

Our prinnter is wireless but it also can be "hard wired"to a computer with a USB cable. Don't know about this particular HP, but the ones I have owned with the "wireless" feature also could be plugged into any computer. Wireless most times is just a "feature" not making a device exclusively only wireless. If this one does? New one to me.

Re: Need Help With Printer

qbetzforreal — Thu, 25 Dec 2014 04:39:36 GMT

John is correct.You have change the preference.

Re: Need Help With Printer

coffee drinker — Fri, 26 Dec 2014 02:02:25 GMT

Again, thank you for all the replies. Today was too busy to fuss with the printer, but we will try again. I'll have my husband look at the responses and maybe he can get something from them.

I finally looked at the back of the printer and there is a wire leading back to the PC, so it's not really "wireless" like I thought.

Re: Need Help With Printer

VolvoGirl — Sat, 27 Dec 2014 06:47:08 GMT

It would help if people would post the exact model number. And I think when you first set up a wireless printer you do connect it to the computer with the USB cable to install it and then you can unplug it and use it wirelessly.

You say it is plugged into the PC? So you should also have a second wire to plug it into the wall for power? Sometimes you have to completely unplug it from the wall to reset it. Just pull the power cord out from the back of the printer for a couple minutes.

Re: Need Help With Printer

glb613 — Sat, 27 Dec 2014 12:24:33 GMT

On 12/26/2014 VolvoGirl said:
It would help if people would post the exact model number. And I think when you first set up a wireless printer you do connect it to the computer with the USB cable to install it and then you can unplug it and use it wirelessly.

You say it is plugged into the PC? So you should also have a second wire to plug it into the wall for power? Sometimes you have to completely unplug it from the wall to reset it. Just pull the power cord out from the back of the printer for a couple minutes.

Not anymore. You connect the wireless printer to the network. Once it's on the network, you install the software on the computers. When asked if you want to install a local printer (connected to your computer) or a network computer (connected to a wireless network), you select network computer.

Your computer doesn't have to be wireless to do this. I have the wireless turned off on my iMac and didn't have wireless capability with my HP desktop and they are able to use a wireless network printer without a cable. They are/were connected to the router using a Cat5 cable.