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Printhead maintenance
If you are experiencing problems with printing, you might have a problem with the
printhead. You should perform the procedures in the following sections only when
directed to do so for resolving print quality issues.
Performing the aligning and cleaning procedures unnecessarily can waste ink and
shorten the life of the cartridges.
This section contains the following topics:
•
Clean the printhead
•
Align the printhead
•
Print and evaluate a print quality report
Clean the printhead
If your printed output is streaked or has any incorrect or missing colors, the printhead
might need to be cleaned.
There are two stages of cleaning. Each stage lasts about two minutes, uses one sheet
of paper, and uses an increasing amount of ink. After each stage, review the quality of
the printed page. You should only initiate the next phase of cleaning if the print quality
is poor.
If print quality still seems poor after you complete both stages of cleaning, try aligning
the printer. If print quality problems persist after cleaning and aligning, contact HP
support. For more information, see
HP support.
NOTE: Cleaning uses ink, so clean the printhead only when necessary. The
cleaning process takes a few minutes. Some noise might be generated in the
process. Before cleaning the printhead, make sure you load paper. For more
information, see
Load media.
Not turning the printer off correctly can cause print quality problems. For more
information, see
Turn off the printer.
To clean the printhead from the control panel
1. Load Letter, A4, or Legal unused plain white paper into the main input tray. For
more information, see
Load standard-size media.
2.
From the Home screen, press the
(Setup) button.
3. Using the buttons on the right, scroll to and select Tools, and then select Clean
Printhead.
To clean the printhead from Toolbox (Windows)
1. Load Letter, A4, or Legal unused plain white paper into the main input tray. For
more information, see
Load standard-size media.
2. Open Toolbox. For more information, see
Open the Toolbox.
3. From the Device Services tab, click the icon to the left of Clean Printheads.
4. Follow the onscreen instructions.
Chapter 8
126 Solve a problem