Printer Cartridge Woes

wish i could help you but i can't . my printer quit working a long time ago & never could find one that was compatible w/my computer. it's like me old & cranky.

I have an all-in-one. It is the smallest one they make, the cartridges are so small that only Smurfs can use them. And if the black cartridges has a little ink, you have to replace it. Why not replace just the black cartridge and see what happened? Usually that will fix the problem. That looks similar to my printer. Does it not bother you having to go to the store and get cartridges like every week or so? I plan to get a better printer one where the cartridges last at least a couple of months.

Don't you just hate it when that happens? I just replaced my old printer with an HP. Of course, it takes two cartridges but they are cheaper than most on the market. And, yes, if one cartridge is out then the printer will not print. I thought is was a faulty cartridge with my old printer and I tried pressing an amonia dampened paper towel to the print head as the refill man told me to do. If the printer has set for a long time without use, sometimes the head of the cartridge will not print. So, the amonia trick helps to get it started again. If the cartridge is empty then this will not work. I have also been told that refilling cartridges is bad and that it harms the printer. I think this is due to the normal wear and tear on the cartridge head and to keep reusing it wears on the printer. But, why then do all the office supply businesses offer refilled cartridges for sale? I am going to research this one before I have to replace the next cartridge. I want this printer to keep working. My new printer is an Officejet J5780 All-In-One. I really like it!

I have a Brothers all in one and what ticks me off is I can't even use the phone and the answering machine doesn't work either if one of the ink cartridges is out.

That's weird...I have an HP all-in-one printer as well and I use separate ink cartridges also..I'm completely zapped of my black ink, but can still use my printer to print anything in color. I've also have had the reverse where I had no color ink, only black and could still print..weird no?

Hi Lady, maybe you need to force your printout to mono chrome or black and white, there is setting somewhere in the option for this and you could set this as the default until you have color ink.

Hi, I have an HP all in one too and I take the color print cartridge out when it is empty and it lets me print in black ink. I hope you can get it figured out, or this helps. Good Luck ~Icy~

No. It makes no difference - they are all the same. The printer manufacturers make money from the ink. They can almost give the printer away free! You have to have ink in all the cartridges for even black to work. You will also see that when you print only in black it still uses a bit of the colours too! That is to use more ink. The other thing they found out is on the chipped ink cartridges, like Epson uses, the chip tells the printer/PC that the ink has run out when they have proved that there is still 10%+ ink left in it. In a phrase, my dear, they have got us by the short and curlies! haha

Yeah... I also think why I should buy a color ink when I only want to print black. In the long run, buying color inks is more expensive than buying a printer itself.

My Canon Printer doesn't reset automatically when I change a cartridge..You go into the printer settings menu and can tell it You've put in a new cart (When You haven't!) and continue using the remaining ink..hope Yours has this feature..! Mine has a Colour cartridge and a black cartridge..you can set in the menu to output in grayscale only,in which case it'll only use the Black one.

Did you try printing in grayscale? That's what I do. I know I can still print with my HP if my color runs out. Mine is a all in one also. I just had problems with a canon. I had to buy a print head, and that didn't solve the problem. Now I am out $40 and my printer still won't work, I tried and they won't take the print head back! Ugh!!!! I had to replace a printer due to our water episode, so I bought a Kodak printer (all in one) for $99. It supposedly prints out pictures just as good as the kodak kiosk haven't tried it yet. I bought this printer for the girls to use plus for me to use so I can print out more coupons to use at the store. When I was putting it together it had the dreaded print head, I wish they would have said that on the box, I might have had second thoughts about it. But I think having a print head keeps the cartridge prices down.

mine does the same thing. they all have to have ink in them or it won't work at all.

I had the same issue with my printer last week. I was out of 2 colors, but the black and the yellow were still pretty full. I could not print anything not even in black and white. It is a pain in the butt. I have an Epson and mine does the same thing yours does.

Printer sometimes uses a little bit of colour in the black (couse it's not always 100% black). If you buy new colour cartridge (I think you have to do this anyway) you will be able to print again. Cheers and happy myloting.

Mine's an Epson so I knew going in that it would behave that way, but it is still frustrating. I'm fairly convinced that I will just replace it with a black printer only. Color ink is stupidly expensive and I barely use it anyway/ If I need color prints, I'll go to staples :)

I'm not sure that there is a way around it. For some reason I believe they are designed that way, which I don't agree with at all. Because lots of people just want to print black and white, and not the color. Hope you got a better answer than I've given here. I'm responding through my e-mail so I don't have a clue what anyone else has already said.

I have an Epson printer and the colors are all seperate from the black etc... Hence you just replace the color you need at the time its empty. I love it. I used to have an HP Deskjet also and I hated replacing the cartridge when I still had ink.