Any Ideas Why Old Printer Doesn't Print?

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kaneohe

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Ancient Lexmark Color Jetprinter 1000......typical replacement cartridge from Amazon starts ok w/ black print. As time goes by, the print becomes magenta and then long term becomes fuzzy and hard to read. Since I am only looking for legibility the color change is tolerated and since only I only use it occasionally, the not too many pages lifetime is ok.

A few days ago I tried to print and the printer went through its fuzzy/hard to read stage. Sometimes cleaning the printhead w/ a water-moistened Q-tip helps temporarily so I tried that. The printer went through the motions but did not print anything. I assumed I had bled the cartridge dry when I tried to clean it.

Order a new cartridge from Amazon. When I tried it, same result....nothing even tho it went thru the motions. Tried the cleaning cycle in the printer cartridge program but same result.

Any ideas?
 
Big_Hitter said:
get a new printer
Click to expand...

+1
I tossed my inkjet printer in the trash years ago and went with a laser all in one printer. Purchased a generic toner cartridge 3 years ago for $30 and it's still going strong, print quality is excellent and fast.
 
4 years ago I got a cheap wifi Brother printer that takes small but real cheap cartridges (barely $1/per). Well worth buying over dealing with paying $20+ for replacement cartridges for whatever printer I had (might have been Lexmark) and dealing with them drying due to low usage or other issues). Still reliable whenever I need it. So, +2 on getting a new printer.
 
Laser is the way to go.
 
zinger1457 said:
+1
I tossed my inkjet printer in the trash years ago and went with a laser all in one printer. Purchased a generic toner cartridge 3 years ago for $30 and it's still going strong, print quality is excellent and fast.
Click to expand...
+1
 
+3? 4? on the laser printer.

I bought my color laserjet printer in August, 2005, the week before Hurricane Katrina.

It still makes beautiful color printouts, and I have not had to change the cartridges even once yet. I don't print a lot so it is great for me.

Oh, and I just checked and the most popular color laserjet on Amazon is the same brand as mine, looks about the same, is probably lots faster, and cost half what mine did in 2005. But if you prefer inkjets, they are cheaper than they used to be, also.
 
From the description, it is likely a clogged printer head - common with infrequently used printers. If you can find a way to soak the head in a bit of water, it might clear. When faced with similar obstacles, my attitude is "what have I got to loose". Plan B, get a new printer.
PS - if you are using refilled 'knock-off' brand cartridges, I had a few that were bad right out of the wrapper.
 
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Agree with bjorn. Ink cartridges do not hold up well if not used frequently. I recall removing the cartridges from an early laserjet and storing them in a container with slight humidity in it. Said goodbye to inkjets forever (bought color laser and black laser all-in-1). What a difference.
 
+4. Get a new laser printer. Toner will print 3-4 thousand pages.
(depends on amount of letters per page). In my HP, black only printer,
toner seems to last forever. Does not dry out.

I only use my "ink jet printers" for copying and printing color pages.

Also, not sure if others are aware. But when your toner starts to "run" out
of ink, does not print dark and true. You can extend the life of the
toner cartridge by doing this.

Take out the cartridge, and swing it like a pendulum. Back and forth a few
times.

Re-insert the toner cartridge, you can print another couple of hundred pages.:greetings10:
 
+5 on laser specially now that you can buy monochrome ones for $20-30 on sale.

I paid $150 for a Canon B/W Multifunction like 6-7 years back and I've only had to change the toner cartridge twice. If I had stuck to our "free" inkjet color printer, I would have been spending $100 a year for ink cartridges.

At work, we have 15-20 year old laser printers that are still in use. There are frequent paper jam issues with the 20 year old printers (worn out rollers) but so far, the 15 year olds seem to be doing fine.
 
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Ditto with the laser printer. You might find one on Craigslist that are pretty good, but you are probably from Kaneohe and don't have much of a choice there in the islands. If you only print once in a while, go to the library if its not too far and do your printing there.
 
Check the new cartridge and make sure the sticker was removed correctly, then reseat it. Check the recent reviews of the cartridge provider for reports of faulty instances. Also look for diagnostic signals (not sure if your old model has any) or warnings from the printer software on your computer (again, if any). Worst case, time for a new printer!
 
Thanks, all,for the replies. Will these new printers work with an old computer running Win95?
 
kaneohe said:
Thanks, all,for the replies. Will these new printers work with an old computer running Win95?
Click to expand...
Alas, likely not. I think earliest drivers you'll find is for Windows XP. You can try replacing the operating system with Linux or something. However, does your computer even have a USB port?

Might be time to replace the computer, too. I've seen plenty of off-lease refurbs for $100 or less.
 
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kaneohe said:
Thanks, all,for the replies. Will these new printers work with an old computer running Win95?
Click to expand...

Depends if the maker provides a driver for win95. A cheap inkjet printer is probably what we called a "winprinter" as it is completely dependent on the software driver and difficult to get working on other systems like linux. The reason printers got cheap is they moved the "smarts" off the printer to software driver, in doing so it make them incompatible without having a driver for the specific OS.

Also a new printer will need the correct interface, either a serial or parallel port, I don' think Win95 supported USB ( without some add on software ).

I have replaced the print heads when they get clogged but the costs is probably not worth it. Try cleaning with rubbing alcohol instead of water. I'm surprised you can even find ink for for it :). I have seen these for sale on ebay in the vintage computer section from time to time.


One thing that might work is look for one with universal print driver support. Many of the manufacturers have these now that are supposed to work with any windows system, example from lexmark http://support.lexmark.com/index?page=content&id=FA689&locale=en&userlocale=EN_US
 
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I'm surprised that anything still works with Win95. My 6-year-old Vista laptop was becoming a dinosaur, with all sorts of software compatability issues, things not supported anymore, overheating when animated ads taxed the CPU, etc. when I finally gave in a year ago and bought a new one running Windows 8.1. Computers and printers are dirt cheap these days.
 
bjorn2bwild said:
PS - if you are using refilled 'knock-off' brand cartridges, I had a few that were bad right out of the wrapper.
Click to expand...

Yea, this was my experience too. I could not justify the high cost of original manufacturer ink cartridges in such an old printer, and the off brand printer head on cartridge type were too unreliable. It was cheaper to replace the machine.
 
If you print only occasionally and have access to a Staples or Office Depot kind of store, just use their services instead of dealing with dried out ink cartridges.

Install a pdf print driver to create a pdf file, put it on an SD card and take it there and have it printed. I think (but am not sure) you can print over the internet at these location too, but obviously, there are privacy issues.
 
even better - take it out and shoot it with about 30 rounds of 7.62
 
I bought an HP 2350 about 5 years ago. Printer was less than $100 and toner was $35. I'm up to about 6,000 sheets printed with about 10,000 left to go on this toner. This printer may very well outlive me. And since it's quite a few years old, it'll work with just about any OS. I bet it might work with my old Commdore Vic 20! I across bought a spare printer (same kind) for about $75 last year just to have a spare!

Sent from my mobile device so please excuse grammatical errors. :)
 
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