We have an Epson RX425, which is a 5 year old color laserjet. It should be in more or less perfect condition, because we only had ink for it for about, oh, four months, and the rest of the time it’s mostly been used only as a scanner. But I got new ink for it, and after an exceedingly frustrating couple hours of running color test pages, I finally got all four cartridges to actually print their little wavy lines that indicated yes, they were all functional.
Literally immediately upon managing this, the printer announced it was out of ink and will not print anything at all. Now, not only are they brand-new (and brand-name) cartridges so they shouldn’t be out of ink, if I shake the little fuckers I can hear the ink sloshing around. Shaking, however, does not loosen whatever is causing the printer to think it has no ink. Neither does hitting it, swearing at it, or rebooting it.
Does anybody have *any* goddamned clue what I should try next? Don’t suggest defenestrating, because I’m already pissed off and have no sense of humor left about this.
I always wet the tip of a cotton swab and rubbed it on the print cartridge heads (the metal pieces, for anyone reading who doesn’t know where the heads are). Sometimes the tiny holes that the ink comes out of get clogged, and even using the “clean print heads” function on the printer doesn’t unclog them. But a little moisture might.
Good luck!
http://www.fixyourownprinter.com/forums/printer/39568
I found this link, but it is 3/4 way down the page where they talk about resetting the printer-even if you haven’t used it. Then there is a page you click on to get it to reset.http://www.eserviceinfo.com (if you have vista you may have problems)