I think my printer's busted.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

OK, I've had an HP Deskjet printer for close to 5 years. Bought a new black ink cartridge for it just a few months ago, which has been hardly used at all. Lately it has been making weird noises after being turned on and when printing (kind of like, loud grinding sounds). Also, when it prints things like normal text, the print is faded looking even though no "low ink" message comes up. It usually prints a very half assed looking "test page" after printing anything else for some reason. It looks like a normal test page, but lots of lines will be missing, etc. It also prints slowly.

 

Is the printer basically shot, or is there anyway to fix this? If not, what would be a reasonably priced brand of printer to look at? I noticed Dell has some fairly decent priced ones, but don't know what else is out there.

 

Thanks in advance. I want to try and get this taken care of soon, as my wife is in grad school and having a printer kind of helps with, you know, homework and stuff.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Hey, anyone have any ideas at all now?

[tominator89 0]

Avoid Dell printers at all cost. The only method of getting ink for their machines is through them directly. That is extremely annoying. Trust me, I worked at Staples and people were constantly in the store looking for ink for a last minute project.

 

As far as your problem, don't bother fixing it. Even having someone look at it would probably not be worth it. Printers are quite cheap now. In fact, new ink for your printer probably costs about as much as a new ink jet. I'd look into getting a new one.

 

The question then becomes, do you need color or not? If you don't want color, there are some inexpensive black & white lasers. Color lasers have come down in price but are still a few hundred bucks. As for ink jets, they range in price. You can get the all-in-one machines that are useful. Regardless, I'd always go for an HP; they are the best. I've used Lexmark, Canon, Epson and they aren't bad, but HP is the king.

 

That's about all I have to say, hope it helps.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

OK, thanks for the advice. I'll definitely avoid Dell then. I would definitely want color though. I guess I will look at newer HP priners.

[Dr. Tom 0]

I've always found HP's inkjets to be shitty. Their lasers are good, though. If you want the reliability of a laser with color, you should be able to go to a site like Tigerdirect.com and find a home-use color laser for around $500.