DELL printer Issues......

[WIMUSKY]

Working fine today. Then out of the blue, it doesn't recognize the black cartridge. Dell Photo AIO printer 944 "Printer cartridge missing". Took the cartridge out/reinstalled, nothing. Cleaned the area of the black cartridge nothing. Shut the printer off, nothing. It shows a ? mark on the black cartridge icon...... What to do?

 

[MTboatguy]

Re: DELL printer Issues......

Go to the store and buy a new cartridge, somehow the chip in the cartridge has been erased or the printer can't read it properly, have you cleaned the contacts on the cartridge AND in the printer? A little bit of alcohol on a Q-trip can go a long ways to fixing this, but again, if all of a sudden it does not recognize, it is most likely the chip is bad.

Also, make sure you have the latest drivers installed.

 

[GA_Boater]

Re: DELL printer Issues......

If you have the old cartridge, put it in and see if the same error occurs. Another thing to try is unplug the power brick from the printer and plug it back in after about 5 minutes. Sometimes that resets the brains and sometimes it doesn't.

 

[WIMUSKY]

Re: DELL printer Issues......

Go to the store and buy a new cartridge, somehow the chip in the cartridge has been erased or the printer can't read it properly, have you cleaned the contacts on the cartridge AND in the printer? A little bit of alcohol on a Q-trip can go a long ways to fixing this, but again, if all of a sudden it does not recognize, it is most likely the chip is bad.

Also, make sure you have the latest drivers installed.

Yep. Cleaned everything to no avail. Haven't checked the drivers yet. Color works fine, however...... Wife is going to check at Walmart for a cartridge. We're limited to stores out in the brush. We usually order them online.....

If you have the old cartridge, put it in and see if the same error occurs. Another thing to try is unplug the power brick from the printer and plug it back in after about 5 minutes. Sometimes that resets the brains and sometimes it doesn't.

No old cartridge. Pulling the brick as we speak. Did power it off earlier.

 

[WIMUSKY]

Re: DELL printer Issues......

Pulling the brick didn't work. Came up right away about the black cartridge missing...... Hopefully the wife can find some ink at Wally World. I think I'll go for a ride in the "Rod" instead...... Race has been boring.....

 

[oldjeep]

Re: DELL printer Issues......

Throw it away and never buy another Dell printer again. Seriously. Next time pick up an HP - preferably a color laser rather than an inkjet.

I had that same printer you have and the thing was a constant pain in the rear, replaced twice under warranty. The final straw was when we upgraded to Win 8 and Dell had no drivers for it. With HP products they always keep their drivers up to date when the new OS comes out, with Dell they are throw away.

 

[WIMUSKY]

Re: DELL printer Issues......

We've had it for 6 years, I believe, and this is the first issue....... Wally World didn't have any ink for Dell. We'll get some online and at least try it. If it doesn't fix the issue we'll look for something else.....

 

[GA_Boater]

Re: DELL printer Issues......

Staples and Best Buy have the cartridges. Or they used to until I dumped Dell printer because it was junk. Epson makes some some good, affordable printers.

I've tried a lot pf printers and I always come back to Epson. Maybe because all they do are imaging products and don't fool around with phones, tablets and TV.

 

[MTboatguy]

Re: DELL printer Issues......

To be honest with you, I dumped color printers quite a while ago, then just don't have the reliability that lasers do and they are darn expensive to keep going with the cost of consumables. If I need a color print, I go to the local office store and have them print it out for me.

 

[WIMUSKY]

Re: DELL printer Issues......

The closest Best Buy, Staples etc is 1hr away. The price of living in the boonies. We'll order a cartridge online and give the printer one shot.....

 

[oldjeep]

Re: DELL printer Issues......

To be honest with you, I dumped color printers quite a while ago, then just don't have the reliability that lasers do and they are darn expensive to keep going with the cost of consumables. If I need a color print, I go to the local office store and have them print it out for me.

Color Laser - best of both worlds. The toner never dries out, so you are not throwing away your consumables if you don't use the printer very often.

I've got the older version of this one and my dad has this one exactly. No complaints at all.
http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/ho...t/CF145A?HP-LaserJet-Pro-200-color-MFP-M276nw

 

[WIMUSKY]

Re: DELL printer Issues......

My wife works from home and the co. she works for supplied her with an HP Officejet Pro 8600:
HP Officejet Pro 8600 e-All-in-One Printer - N911a | HP? Official Store

Maybe I could connect to that somehow......

 

[matt167]

Re: DELL printer Issues......

Yes, it appears to use the Jetdirect protocol so it should be pretty easy to set up

 

[WIMUSKY]

Re: DELL printer Issues......

Haven't received the black ink cartridge yet. Is there anyway to just print from the color cartridge w/o changing the characters to a color other than black? I'm going to guess the answer is no.......

 

[MTboatguy]

Re: DELL printer Issues......

Many color printers won't allow you to print if they don't have all of the cartridges installed, if it is not sensing your black, I suspect it is not going allow you to print anything. I do know that some will allow you to print in black if a color is out, but I don't know of a way to make it print in color if the black is out.

 

[WIMUSKY]

Re: DELL printer Issues......

It does print the color portion of the document, unfortunately, that's just fluff. It's a billing spreadsheet.....

 

[MTboatguy]

Re: DELL printer Issues......

It does print the color portion of the document, unfortunately, that's just fluff. It's a billing spreadsheet.....

If it will print the color portion, there may be a setting to tell it to combine all colors so that it will print in a muddy brown. I have seen that before.

 

[southkogs]

Re: DELL printer Issues......

It does print the color portion of the document, unfortunately, that's just fluff. It's a billing spreadsheet.....

Convert the important stuff (I'm assuming text) to a single color (say, blue) and try printing that. You might be able to "trick" it.

 

[bassman284]

Re: DELL printer Issues......

A few years back I needed new cartridges for my HP 900. New cartridges were going to cast about 38 bucks and Wally World had a Deskjet 2050 on sale for about 45 bucks and had a pretty decent scanner with copy capability. Easy choice. Also turned out to be much faster and better quality than the 900.

I bought a ream of paper about a year and a half ago and still have over a third of it left so my printing demands are fairly low. Generally my ink cartridges just dry up rather than run out. The 2050 is obviously obsolete by now, probably was when I bought it, but it has been extremely satisfactory. The cartridges are (or were) less expensive than the ones for the 900, mainly because they are about half the size which is perfect for me. I actually replaced the cartridges last year some time.

 

[WIMUSKY]

Re: DELL printer Issues......

If it will print the color portion, there may be a setting to tell it to combine all colors so that it will print in a muddy brown. I have seen that before.

I've looked for a different setting, seems to be a no go. Thanks for the advice....

Convert the important stuff (I'm assuming text) to a single color (say, blue) and try printing that. You might be able to "trick" it.

I have too many documents to start changing color. Also, the grid wouldn't print out and may be confusing to people.....

I'll just hope a new cartridge will work. Otherwise, a shopping I will go......