the big bang wrote:ok. soooooo......
the computer was telling me that the black ink was full, but after reading the suggestions on here, i went out nd grabbed a new black cartridge. the othe 3 colors i replaced yesterday. still no results.
when i try and print just a page of black writing, the printer actually does what it would normally do if it was working, but the ink just isn't coming out. the message is getting from the computer to the printer, just not from the printer to the paper.
I've had that sort of thing happen on two occasions.
One was when I tried to put a generic replacement in a printer that refused to recognise it as a new cartridge. It was cheaper to get another printer than buy the "original" cartridge.
The other was a printer I'd left standing for a while and the ink dried up in the pathways in the carriage that held the cartridges.
I tried flushing them out with various solvents but it didn't work - and replacing that part was 1.5 times the original cost of the printer it came in.
That's why I gave up on ink jets.