Poor printing...

Gall1987 · 22 Jan 2010 at 20:31

Hi,

I'm wondering if anyone can help...

I have a HP PSC 1410 Printer and the printing quality is poor when printing text. The printing quality is set to normal, but when it prints the quality looks as though the black is running out.

I have changed the black ink cartridge and although the colour is slighty low, there is still enough left.

I have cleaned and aligned the cartridges many times. When I set the quality to best, it prints better but is obviously using more ink.

Any ideas?

danb21t · 22 Jan 2010 at 20:32

the best one to choose is the toner setting...

sorry for the unhelpful response...

Gall1987 · 22 Jan 2010 at 20:41

danb21t said:
the best one to choose is the toner setting...

sorry for the unhelpful response...

Mine only has: Fast Draft, Fast Normal, Normal, Best and Maximum DPI.

It's always been set on normal and worked fine, up until now.

It will print fine on best but it is a lot darker and using an awful lot more ink!

danb21t · 22 Jan 2010 at 20:56

I was being an idiot and my reply contained no useful information what so ever

have you tried a nozzle clean/test page thingy

Gall1987 · 22 Jan 2010 at 21:18

danb21t said:
I was being an idiot and my reply contained no useful information what so ever

have you tried a nozzle clean/test page thingy

Don't worry about it

I've manually removed and wiped the cartridges. Performed a number of cartridge cleans and aligned the cartridges. Also the test print seems to print fine...

teulk · 22 Jan 2010 at 21:27

I have the same printer and it does exactly the same thing and its real pain. It tends to be ok with fresh cartridges after a lot of cleaning sessions. Also if i print the test page with the "pear" on it then its perfect but then if i print text documents they start off ok and then it looks like the ink has ran out at certain parts and then back to normal. The strange thing is though is that i could print the same text document a dozen times and its always the same parts of the document that are faded or missing..........

Gall1987 · 22 Jan 2010 at 21:29

teulk said:
I have the same printer and it does exactly the same thing and its real pain. It tends to be ok with fresh cartridges after a lot of cleaning sessions. Also if i print the test page with the "pear" on it then its perfect but then if i print text documents they start off ok and then it looks like the ink has ran out at certain parts and then back to normal. The strange thing is though is that i could print the same text document a dozen times and its always the same parts of the document that are faded or missing..........

That's exactly what it's doing! Do you find that increasing the DPI by changing the print quality sorts it?

What do you suggest to sort it? I've used so much ink and paper!! :mad:

teulk · 22 Jan 2010 at 21:41

I havent actually tried changing the print quality, only the cleaning cycles like a million times. Im going to be getting some new cartridges tomorrow so i will try changing the print quality to see what happens. Just out of curiosity are you using HP cartridges or 3rd party ones ? Ive got 3rd party ones in at the moment and if my memory serves me right ( i dont use the printer much) when it had HP cartridges in it was fine..... i think

Gall1987 · 22 Jan 2010 at 22:01

teulk said:
I havent actually tried changing the print quality, only the cleaning cycles like a million times. Im going to be getting some new cartridges tomorrow so i will try changing the print quality to see what happens. Just out of curiosity are you using HP cartridges or 3rd party ones ? Ive got 3rd party ones in at the moment and if my memory serves me right ( i dont use the printer much) when it had HP cartridges in it was fine..... i think

I've always used third party cartridges. I've always used them fine until now.

Maybe it is worth getting in contact with HP, as it may be a fault they are aware of and have a resolution for? It does seem a bit strange that yours has exactly the same problem.

I can't figure out why it will print some text fine and then other text doesn't print as clear. If you change the quality it will work, but you will notice that the text is printed a lot more bold and that your ink levels go down an awful lot quicker!!

teulk · 22 Jan 2010 at 22:09

If you were to contact HP i bet they would strong advise you against usng 3rd party cartridges and to only use HP - i bet they would blame the problem on the 3rd party cartridges.

The thing i find very strange is the fact that it is always the same part of the documents that are affected no matter how many times you print it - i just cant work that one out.

I will definately try changing the print quality but with the cartridges being so small its not a very effective work around - however if thats all that works then so be it - not ideal tho'.

Is there anyway of perhaps slowing the printing down but then again i guess increasing the printing quality will do that.

Gall1987 · 22 Jan 2010 at 22:12

teulk said:
If you were to contact HP i bet they would strong advise you against usng 3rd party cartridges and to only use HP - i bet they would blame the problem on the 3rd party cartridges.

The thing i find very strange is the fact that it is always the same part of the documents that are affected no matter how many times you print it - i just cant work that one out.

I will definately try changing the print quality but with the cartridges being so small its not a very effective work around - however if thats all that works then so be it - not ideal tho'.

Is there anyway of perhaps slowing the printing down but then again i guess increasing the printing quality will do that.

I might contact them and not mention that I have been using third party cartridges and see what they advise. I'm no expert but couldn't it be a problem with the drivers if it is only affecting certain documents?

I'm going to try multiple cleaning cycles at some point over the weekend and see how that works. I wouldn't recommend changing the quality as a workaround as you'll go through so much ink! It really does use loads when it's set at 'best' or higher...