K550 CIS not resetting all of a sudden, any help would be great!

[garygarland]

Hi All,
I'm new to the forum as I have a recent issue - I searched and don't believe this was posted already. I love my Officejet K550dtn (duplex, extra tray which misfeeds so is useless, network) - i use this printer in my office many times a day as a "scrap" printout producer - not for clients, but great for internal stuff, cheap color printing right by my desk, etc.
I have the "ST" style of CISS which i bought probably a year or more ago - it has the auto reset chips and has worked nearly flawlessly until a few days ago - now, when i print a page it stops before it is completely ejected and all the cartridge lights flash - the computer indicates it is a faulty or defective cartridge and that's the end of that - if i power off i am back in business...for one page. forget about duplexing.
i've unplugged the printer for a day or two, pulled out and reinserted the cartridges, made sure there was ink in the cartridges, done some voodoo, but can't figure out what went wrong between last week and this week.
could the reset chips have gone bad?
Again, any help would be greatly appreciated -- thanks so much!

 

[websnail]

This is a wild assed guess but it's likely there was an expiry date on those chips... I seem to remember hearing some vague whisper about something like this a long time ago but I can't find any references so it's very much, as I said, a guess.

I do know that the K550, as with all HP88 printers, has expiry dates on things like the printheads, cartridges, etc... and I think even autoreset chips have to have something like this.

I'll see if I can get some more info from a contact I know who is very up on this stuff and get back to this thread if I can get more.

 

[garygarland]

Thanks so much for your reply - very much appreciated. earlier today, when i checked the status after a "hard reset" of the printer the chips showed an expiry of 2010 - i don't knwo if it's always 2 years beyond the date of the reset, or hard wired to be 2010.
i took another good close look at them just now, and there is no wiring (as i should have realized) so a real possiblity would be if i could just buy new auto reset chips (if that's the problem) and keep my existing and much beloved ink system - any source for just the chips would also be appreciated.
as an aside, i bought a k5400 for home, and a CIS which I'm awaiting - i might try the new CIS on the 550 - i understand it is likely to work, though my older k550 chips are supposedly unlikely to work in the k5400. thanks again for any help!

 

[websnail]

Thanks so much for your reply - very much appreciated. earlier today, when i checked the status after a "hard reset" of the printer the chips showed an expiry of 2010 - i don't knwo if it's always 2 years beyond the date of the reset, or hard wired to be 2010.
i took another good close look at them just now, and there is no wiring (as i should have realized) so a real possiblity would be if i could just buy new auto reset chips (if that's the problem) and keep my existing and much beloved ink system - any source for just the chips would also be appreciated.

I purchased some recently but they were a bulk purchase... I do have some old chips I wasn't overly keen on I could send at a pinch as I'm never going to use them but frankly I'd see if you can get some on ebay or similar.

as an aside, i bought a k5400 for home, and a CIS which I'm awaiting - i might try the new CIS on the 550 - i understand it is likely to work, though my older k550 chips are supposedly unlikely to work in the k5400. thanks again for any help!

Heh... I got a K5400dtn as it was a bargain price and I need to do some testing so I can help there too.. The K5400 chips will generally work with the K550 but that's based on one set of chips I've had... I can't see anyone producing an HP88 compatible chip that isn't backwards compatible though so you should be ok.

Perhaps the solution to your problem is to contact whoever you got your new CIS from and ask if they'll sell you a new set of chips for your other CIS.. Worst they can say is no...

 

[garygarland]

thanks - i'll happily purchase your k550 chips though if you're not keen on them i'd sure like to know why - maybe i won't be keen either! if you'd kindly pm me i'll pm back my e-mail - i've learned about spam the hard way so now i'm being more "private"
i'm guessing something happened to my chips, though i don't know why.
i just did yet another power cycle on the printer, and right now it looks fine (as it does until i print - then after roughly 1 second the page pauses, and then continues, and then stops before it is fully ejected (though it is fully printed) and all the cartridge lights flash along with the power button.
at present my unit says 99% full on each cartridge, and the expiration for each cartridge is 8/13/2010 - again, many thanks!

 

[grutozoid]

Hi there,

I have same problem...

Where I can buy those new chips?

CIS?

Thank's!

Louis

 

[websnail]

Ok... something occured to me here... You're using the printer light as the indicator as to the error when there's actually a toolbox utility which can communicate directly with the printer.

I'd recommend you get the latest version of the full drivers for the K550 and install that on your machine and then try to get the error from the actual printer on that. If nothing else it should give you a much clearer indication of the problem in English rather than our somewhat hamfisted approach (no offense) with guessing the light patterns


As to chips I thought about my un-used K550 chips and realised I wouldn't sell them to my worst enemy (they're that bad!!) I'm going to be having a word with a few people today and see if I can source something a little more elegant. I'll keep you posted.. Sort that toolbox util though and get back to us with the error info'

 

[garygarland]

hi - thanks for the reply - i guess i didn't clarify (sorry) - when the lights blink and the unit won't print, the latest driver/util indicates bad cartridges - when i reset and all is happy the util reports 99% full cartridges, all with an expiration of August 13, 2010 - personally, i wouldn't care if the thing worked but the lights made it look like something out of close encounters (actually, is there a hack for that somewhere?) - but the issue is that about 1/2 a second into printing the page it pauses for about a 1/2 second period - and then i know i'm in trouble - the page will finish (though not always spit out all the way) and then the lights blink and the unit won't print anymore until i power cycle - even removing the cord for an hour, removing the cartridges, etc. - then when i cycle the utility reports everything is fine again. as mentioned, i'm fairly certain it's the chips as this thing has worked flawlessly for more than a year with the chips - also as mentioned i never got the extra tray to work without misfeeding on a regular basis so i just ignore it - the regular tray, though low capacity, has been great with very few misfeeds even though i regulary duplex (or at least used to until last week)
i thought of setting my computer clock back - i don't see any way to change or set the printer's clock if it has one - thanks again!
err, any way to submit photos?

 

[adnam]

At last! someone else is going through the same problem!

I noticed this happen about last week on two K550's (Identical CISS)

Have tried everything as you have, got one working with a different CISS used for my K5400 (which us currently in pieces).

However the new CISS has a pigment ink black which clots with the previous dye ink (hence K5400 dismantle), so I'm stuck with half a CISS and a refilled black 88 as the pigment ink also won't work with the paper I need to use.....nightmare

I think the toolbox might be a different version than the one embedded in the printer - only comes as part of the full driver download (75mb) but I'm sure I've seen it standalone somewhere for sys admin use. I'll check.

Haven't tried the clock change yet though - advised a friend to do this but his was a different problem so will try it on mine now...

keep us posted

 

[adnam]

Ummmmm.... SUCCESS!

Stick your clock back a year. Can't believe I fail to try it before. Not the most elegant of solutions but gets me out of a hole for now.....

Will let you know on the toolbox...