Chosen Solution
I was getting a print head error after buying brand new cartridges. I went down the route of reseating the print head, then soaking it over night in an alcohol solution, letting it dry for several hours, verifying it didn’t have any moisture and reinstalling it. Still same error. After resetting the firmware to factory defaults and going through the initial setup, such as language, I am now getting “Print Head missing.” I reseated it, nothing. I purchased a new/refurbished print head, and get the same exact thing. I’ve also tried gently rubbing the contacts behind the print head with alcohol q-tip swab, and no good. Only thing I’m thinking at this point is to tear it down and reseat all of the ribbon cables and hope one of the main boards isn’t bad. After spending $75 on original HP ink, then another $35 on a print head with refilled ink, it’s making me to never want an ink jet again as I have an extra $110 of junk ink laying around that I can’t use unless I but an outdated printer.
HP usually charges $75 w/ SETUP ink, so that sounds like you bought a used printhead that was cleaned. While these heads may end up working, I don’t like getting the bare head from sites like eBay. The printers are sold at a loss and in many cases, a new printhead is as much as an entire printer (+/- a reasonable price differential) so nobody replaces them since it may not fix the issue and there’s no refunds on parts as it’s usually a one way transaction. What you end up with is a market with used printheads that may or may not work. You are essentially playing Russian roulette with your money with used ones. My money is on a bad print mech or CMOS battery. More then likely what happened is the CR2032 in the printer died and when you unplugged it to preserve the calibration, you inadvertently erased it. That being said I’d also suspect the board in general. The first thing I’d do is get that printhead replaced and try again. If that doesn’t work, check the voltage of the CMOS battery; the board will need to come out and it requires a complete disassembly. If the battery is within ~2.8-3V it’s fine but if it’s lower then that I’d just replace it. If that doesn’t sort the problem out, it’s a board or print mech failure. At that point, the printer is dead. As to what to do with the ink… Your call here but I’d try and return it if you can. If not, sell the rest if you didn’t open it to recoup the loss. This is why I advise replacing the whole printer in my guide, at least as a general rule since printers are sold at a loss. That being said I do replace the heads but I don’t buy them; I usually salvage them from high page count or partially dead printers that I verified are good. The problem is the way I do it isn’t practical unless you regularly get them for free and you can identify if the printhead is recoverable. Even then I prefer to save the one it came with, since printhead prep wastes 1/4 of the ink in the standard cartridges.
