S
Susan Sharm
I'm thoroughly confused and I need your interpretive experience.
I don't know how to INTERPRET results from printer test pages!
Can you help me identify the real problem based on test results below?
-----------------------------------
Details follow:
-----------------------------------
My HP OfficeJet d145 all-in-one printer has been printing streaky
colors for a few weeks (it came upon me all of a sudden though ...
right in the middle of a photo print) - and I don't know how to
interpret the results from all the test pages I ran. These diagnostic
test pages are trying to tell me "something" but (I must admit) I do
not know how to "interpret" what my eyes can see!
-----------------------------------
I wish I had run these tests the day I got the printer and saved the
results to compare now!
-----------------------------------
My problem is I feel kind of dumb as these "utilities" on the printer
are definately "showing" me the problem (and they do show me streaky
colors) but I do not know how to INTERPRET those diagnostic reports! I
see lots of pink, nice black, green & red ok, the blue comes and goes
within any one print but I can't really tell if it is just the blue. I
never knew I was so color challenged!
-----------------------------------
The ink on the c5011a (black) & c5010a (tricolor) ink cartridges is
near the full level (this HP ink cartridge set is nearly unused
although it has been in the Hewlett Packard printer for almost a year
as I do not print very much).
-----------------------------------
WHAT TESTS HAVE I MISSED?
1. I turned the HPOJd145 on & off to activate the startup "SELF TEST",
which did not report any errors.
2. I opened up the Windows XP "Printers and Faxes" window, right
clicked on my "HP OfficeJet D Series Printer" icon, selected
"Properties", pressed "Print Test Page" (see results below for
interpretation).
3. I followed the "HP Officejet d145 Reference Guide" instructions for
removing & replacing with the same ink cartridges (I had no others at
hand). This (not surprisingly) did not change anything; neither did
removing and replacing with the same printheads. I then "cleaned" the
printheads using MENU, 7 (STATUS AND MAINTENANCE), 2 (CLEAN
PRINTHEADS).
4. Pressing MENU, 3 (PRINT REPORT), 5 (SELF-TEST REPORT) printed two
pages which I need help in interpreting (see below).
5. Pressing MENU, 7, 1 (CHECK INK LEVEL) reported two lines in the
front-panel LCD display of "Black 80%", "Color 60%".
6. Pressing MENU, 7, 4 (PERFORM COLOR CALIBRATION) printed a page
containing instructions and a block with a border containing a 9 by 9
array of 81 smaller blocks in various shades of pink and greenish grey
from which I'm supposed to visually determine a correct "Color Patch
Number". I'm supposed to then type in that color patch number into the
front-palen display and then press "ENTER". Again I need help in
interpreting these results (see below).
7. Pressing MENU, 7, 3 (ALIGN PRINTHEADS) printed a cryptic sheet
containing hundreds of small boxes of black, cyan, magenta, and yellow
boxes (and even a blurry to clear tri-color parrot) in all shades but
no instructions on how to interpret the many shaded boxes.
8. I downloaded the
http://www.alotofthings.com/supportforrefillers/PaletteTestPages.htm
palotte test page for reds, oranges, yellows, greens, and blues This
result from this page seems to contradict results from single-color
tests above (see below). I'm so even more confused after running this
test - but I see most of the problems from this test (which is all the
more confusing).
9. Did miss any obvious printer tests that will point me to the problem
(or am I just missing the obvious pointer already)?
10. Would you kindly help me with the interpretation of the color test
results below?
-----------------------------------
A. HOW DO WE INTERPRET WINDOWS XP PRINTER TEST PAGE RESULTS?
This test printed one page saying "Congratulations. If you can read
this information, you have correctly installed your hp officejet d
series printer on SUSAN. The information below describes our printer
driver and port settings. blah blah blah" It might be notable that the
small flag of the Microsoft logo on the top left of this "Windows XP
Printer Test Page" of (clockwise from top right) the colors green,
yellow, blue, & orange seemed to print ok.
-----------------------------------
B. HOW DO WE INTERPRET THE TWO-PAGE SELF-TEST REPORT RESULTS?
This test printed two pages, the first of which first had three
sections.
Page 1 Section 1 listed specifics about the printer model, serial
number, service ID (whatever that is), firmware revision, optional
accessories, and total page count (of 363 pages).
Page 1 Section 2a listed "Ink Cartridge Information" for the "Black Ink
Level" showing a dark black box and then a long light gray bar with
80% at the end (why isn't the bar black?) and an expiration date of
08/16/2006 for the hp no. 14 c5011a black ink cartridge.
The "Ink Cartridge Information" subsection for the "Color Ink Level"
showed a dark tricolor box (the yellow is easily seen) and then a long
light tricolor bar of (from top to bottom) light blue, magenta, &
yellow (they yellow bar is barely visible) with 60% at the end (why are
these colors so light) and an expiration date of 08/16/2006 for the HP
#14 hpc5010a ink cartridge.
Page 1 Section 3 listed "Printhead Information" showing 4 distinct
boxes showing CYAN, BLACK, MAGENTA, and YELLOW quite boldly and
clearly, along with a Status of OV (whatever that is), the installation
date, and other cartridge information already listed. The "Printhead
Alignment" sub section showed 8 dark black vertically oriented
rectangles all aligned well, and six dual-color vertical boxes and six
sets of two dual vertically oriented colored lines, all seemingly
aligned and six sets of horizontally oriented dual color lines, again,
all seemingly in line.
On the bottom of that first page, just before the "Please recycle this
page" reminder, is the belated suggestion of "! Do not remove
printheads untli replacemnts are available." (oh, oh, did I damage them
by removing my printheads and putting them back immediately???).
Page 2 contains four fat bold color bars encompassing the top third of
the 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper in portait mode with the rest of the page
blank. While all four color bars (CYAN, BLACK, MAGENTA, and YELLOW) are
bold and clear, the inch-wide CYAN bar has an unexpected 3/8 inch clear
white "cloud" starting at the left side of the paper stretching like an
oil slick into the center of the paper where it fades to light blue and
then back to dark bold CYAN. There is absolutely no ink in that white
cloud but there are no white streaks whatsoever in all the other
portions of the dark cyan color bar. I seriously need help in
interpreting these unexpected results.
In stark contrast, the half-inch wide black bar is bold and clear but
it has streaks of very thin white strands that roll horizontally across
the paper by the full width.
In further contrast, the inch wide magenta and yellow bars are quite
dark, bold, and contain no streaks of any sort.
-----------------------------------
C. HOW DO WE INTERPRET COLOR CALIBRATION INSTRUCTIONS?
The instructions for the color tint test page say to hold the results 8
inches ahead and slowly move the page containing the 9x9 arrowy of
pinkish-to-greenish blocks until they somehow magically "fade into the
background". Are they crazy? Or am I? NONE of the boxes even comes
close to fading into the background (at any arms length distance)!
The first boxes (numbered 01, 02, 03, etc.) are pinkish and the last
few boxes (79, 80, 81) are greenish. The background is a single shade
of grey. I guess if I really really really try to play along with them,
the numbers at the top right (e.g., 07, 08, 09, and 16, 17, 18) seem
the "greyest" but none are really as grey as the background. If you
forced me at gunpoint to "enter a color patch number", I'd timidly type
"09", however reluctantly (which I did).
-----------------------------------
D. HOW DO WE INTERPRET THE ALIGN PRINTHEADS PRINTOUT REPORT?
The most cryptic of all printouts seems to be the align printheads
output report. It contains a confusing (to me) set of three arrays and
two objects which seem easier to interpret.
Section 1, from right to left, starting on the right side of the
landscape page is an object which looks like a seesaw sans fulcrum with
one person sitting backward. That is, it contains a black box with a
line eminating from one corner and another black box connected to the
line at another corner, all of which is dark and distinct (which I must
suspect is the main point). A bold green check arrow seems to indicate
OK (but maybe I'm stretching my interpretive skills by assuming that.)
Section 2, to the left of that black see-saw, is a blurry multi-color
parrot and a dark black arrow pointing to a distinct and bold
multi-color parrot. I also suspect this is fine (but how do I know)?
There is no check arrow under that parrot so I assume the prior green
arrow suffices.
Section 3, to the left of the two parrots, is a 7 by 7 vertical
oriented array of yellow, magenta, cyan, and black boxes, one set of
which is filled in while the other sets are excel spreadsheeted and one
of the sets is dashed lines. They look OK to me but what am I looking
for? This time there are 7 green check arrows at the bottom of the
page, these being the boldest green arrows on that printer test page.
Section 4, to the left of the excel spreadhseeted boxes are another
array, this time of 5 by 4 single color horizontal lines most of which
seem to be dark and bold except the yellow and black single large box
at the top have some streaks initially at the edge of the paper (the
yellow and magenta are bold throughout). In the many horizontal bars,
there are slight streaks in the black and even less in the blue, but in
both cases they are very slight in those 41 other rows. Of the five
green check arrows, first two (right to left) check arrows are very
bold, the next three have a slight bit of yellow on their thin tips (am
I stretching the interpretation to assume that slight bit of yellow is
significant?).
Section 5, on the left side of the landscape printout test page is
similar to the previous section except that the array of 2 by 4
horizontal oriented bars and dashed lines are now yellow, magenta,
cyan, and black instead of being a single color. Again, exept at the
very top edge of the paper where the colros for black and blue appear
slightly smudged (but not on all top bars), the colors seem perfectly
fine to me. Even the smudged parts are only on the beginning of the
blocks and only in some blocks, so I suspect this may be due to
"normal" edge-of-paper effects ??? The two green check marks at the
bottom of the page clearly have yellow tips and are otherwise bold
green (like a brush dipped in yellow & green paint).
-----------------------------------
D. HOW DO WE INTERPRET THE COLOR PALETTE PRINTOUT REPORT?
The color palette printout from
http://www.alotofthings.com/primer_palette/cpt3_.pdf seems to
contradict much of what is shown above. Worse yet, while most tests
shown above don't show me a problem, this page seems to show me
problems in "mixing" of colors.
Section RED is on the top row which shades from something called
"pagoda", to "vermillion", to "cardinal", to "scarlet", to "christmas",
to "carnival", to "chianti", and finally to "candy apple". These are
clearly red, but, none are what I'd call really bright red. They are
more like a blackish red, sort of like the darkish red of the Coca Cola
can my kid left on the kitchen table just now. Comparing with the
screen display of the PDF, they are a little darker and a bit less red
and more orangey than what I see on the computer.
Section ORANGE contains two rows of 8 squares each from "parchment" to
"ochre", which, in contrast, I'd say are more red than orange (but
who'se to say?). Certainly none are a bright pumpkin orange. Again,
they are sort of like a darkish orange color not too dissimilar than
the colors I see on the screen for that test PDF page.
Section YELLOW is bright, bold, and yellow, much like that of the PDF
test page on screen. I don't have any esthetic complaints, it seems,
about the yellows.
Section GREEN is very dissapointing. None of the 8 by 3 squares is as
vividly green as in the onscreen test PDF and only the last three
"turtle", "jungle" and "billiard" even remotely approach a green army
jeep color. The rest are actually almost fully yellow, with some having
green streaks going through them (but not all). So, the green section
is actually mostly yellow except for those three colors and perhaps the
"turf" color too.
Section BLUE is also disheartening as it's not even remotely blue.
Worse than the green (which at least had three greens) none of the
blues even remotely look like those of the test PDF on screen. They
start out as light yellow at the "Polar" and "Robin's Egg" boxes, turn
to grayish in the "teal" and "newport" boxes, switch to pinkish cyanish
in the "blueprint" and "french" boxes then to darker pinkish cyan in
the final "cobalt", "prussian" & "dresden" boxes.
-----------------------------------
SUMMARY:
-----------------------------------
I'm not sure what to interpret because the HP supplied test pages
"seem" to indicate the colors are OK'ish, while the arbitrary non-HP
test page seems to indicate otherwise. There is plenty of blue and some
bold green checkmarks in the HP test pages, but I'm almost totally
missing blue and green in the arbitrary non-HP test page.
I apologize for the lengthy details (I wanted you to have as much
information as I had).
Can you help interpret these results for me and the many others who
must follow?
Thank you in advance,
Susan Harm
I don't know how to INTERPRET results from printer test pages!
Can you help me identify the real problem based on test results below?
-----------------------------------
Details follow:
-----------------------------------
My HP OfficeJet d145 all-in-one printer has been printing streaky
colors for a few weeks (it came upon me all of a sudden though ...
right in the middle of a photo print) - and I don't know how to
interpret the results from all the test pages I ran. These diagnostic
test pages are trying to tell me "something" but (I must admit) I do
not know how to "interpret" what my eyes can see!
-----------------------------------
I wish I had run these tests the day I got the printer and saved the
results to compare now!
-----------------------------------
My problem is I feel kind of dumb as these "utilities" on the printer
are definately "showing" me the problem (and they do show me streaky
colors) but I do not know how to INTERPRET those diagnostic reports! I
see lots of pink, nice black, green & red ok, the blue comes and goes
within any one print but I can't really tell if it is just the blue. I
never knew I was so color challenged!
-----------------------------------
The ink on the c5011a (black) & c5010a (tricolor) ink cartridges is
near the full level (this HP ink cartridge set is nearly unused
although it has been in the Hewlett Packard printer for almost a year
as I do not print very much).
-----------------------------------
WHAT TESTS HAVE I MISSED?
1. I turned the HPOJd145 on & off to activate the startup "SELF TEST",
which did not report any errors.
2. I opened up the Windows XP "Printers and Faxes" window, right
clicked on my "HP OfficeJet D Series Printer" icon, selected
"Properties", pressed "Print Test Page" (see results below for
interpretation).
3. I followed the "HP Officejet d145 Reference Guide" instructions for
removing & replacing with the same ink cartridges (I had no others at
hand). This (not surprisingly) did not change anything; neither did
removing and replacing with the same printheads. I then "cleaned" the
printheads using MENU, 7 (STATUS AND MAINTENANCE), 2 (CLEAN
PRINTHEADS).
4. Pressing MENU, 3 (PRINT REPORT), 5 (SELF-TEST REPORT) printed two
pages which I need help in interpreting (see below).
5. Pressing MENU, 7, 1 (CHECK INK LEVEL) reported two lines in the
front-panel LCD display of "Black 80%", "Color 60%".
6. Pressing MENU, 7, 4 (PERFORM COLOR CALIBRATION) printed a page
containing instructions and a block with a border containing a 9 by 9
array of 81 smaller blocks in various shades of pink and greenish grey
from which I'm supposed to visually determine a correct "Color Patch
Number". I'm supposed to then type in that color patch number into the
front-palen display and then press "ENTER". Again I need help in
interpreting these results (see below).
7. Pressing MENU, 7, 3 (ALIGN PRINTHEADS) printed a cryptic sheet
containing hundreds of small boxes of black, cyan, magenta, and yellow
boxes (and even a blurry to clear tri-color parrot) in all shades but
no instructions on how to interpret the many shaded boxes.
8. I downloaded the
http://www.alotofthings.com/supportforrefillers/PaletteTestPages.htm
palotte test page for reds, oranges, yellows, greens, and blues This
result from this page seems to contradict results from single-color
tests above (see below). I'm so even more confused after running this
test - but I see most of the problems from this test (which is all the
more confusing).
9. Did miss any obvious printer tests that will point me to the problem
(or am I just missing the obvious pointer already)?
10. Would you kindly help me with the interpretation of the color test
results below?
-----------------------------------
A. HOW DO WE INTERPRET WINDOWS XP PRINTER TEST PAGE RESULTS?
This test printed one page saying "Congratulations. If you can read
this information, you have correctly installed your hp officejet d
series printer on SUSAN. The information below describes our printer
driver and port settings. blah blah blah" It might be notable that the
small flag of the Microsoft logo on the top left of this "Windows XP
Printer Test Page" of (clockwise from top right) the colors green,
yellow, blue, & orange seemed to print ok.
-----------------------------------
B. HOW DO WE INTERPRET THE TWO-PAGE SELF-TEST REPORT RESULTS?
This test printed two pages, the first of which first had three
sections.
Page 1 Section 1 listed specifics about the printer model, serial
number, service ID (whatever that is), firmware revision, optional
accessories, and total page count (of 363 pages).
Page 1 Section 2a listed "Ink Cartridge Information" for the "Black Ink
Level" showing a dark black box and then a long light gray bar with
80% at the end (why isn't the bar black?) and an expiration date of
08/16/2006 for the hp no. 14 c5011a black ink cartridge.
The "Ink Cartridge Information" subsection for the "Color Ink Level"
showed a dark tricolor box (the yellow is easily seen) and then a long
light tricolor bar of (from top to bottom) light blue, magenta, &
yellow (they yellow bar is barely visible) with 60% at the end (why are
these colors so light) and an expiration date of 08/16/2006 for the HP
#14 hpc5010a ink cartridge.
Page 1 Section 3 listed "Printhead Information" showing 4 distinct
boxes showing CYAN, BLACK, MAGENTA, and YELLOW quite boldly and
clearly, along with a Status of OV (whatever that is), the installation
date, and other cartridge information already listed. The "Printhead
Alignment" sub section showed 8 dark black vertically oriented
rectangles all aligned well, and six dual-color vertical boxes and six
sets of two dual vertically oriented colored lines, all seemingly
aligned and six sets of horizontally oriented dual color lines, again,
all seemingly in line.
On the bottom of that first page, just before the "Please recycle this
page" reminder, is the belated suggestion of "! Do not remove
printheads untli replacemnts are available." (oh, oh, did I damage them
by removing my printheads and putting them back immediately???).
Page 2 contains four fat bold color bars encompassing the top third of
the 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper in portait mode with the rest of the page
blank. While all four color bars (CYAN, BLACK, MAGENTA, and YELLOW) are
bold and clear, the inch-wide CYAN bar has an unexpected 3/8 inch clear
white "cloud" starting at the left side of the paper stretching like an
oil slick into the center of the paper where it fades to light blue and
then back to dark bold CYAN. There is absolutely no ink in that white
cloud but there are no white streaks whatsoever in all the other
portions of the dark cyan color bar. I seriously need help in
interpreting these unexpected results.
In stark contrast, the half-inch wide black bar is bold and clear but
it has streaks of very thin white strands that roll horizontally across
the paper by the full width.
In further contrast, the inch wide magenta and yellow bars are quite
dark, bold, and contain no streaks of any sort.
-----------------------------------
C. HOW DO WE INTERPRET COLOR CALIBRATION INSTRUCTIONS?
The instructions for the color tint test page say to hold the results 8
inches ahead and slowly move the page containing the 9x9 arrowy of
pinkish-to-greenish blocks until they somehow magically "fade into the
background". Are they crazy? Or am I? NONE of the boxes even comes
close to fading into the background (at any arms length distance)!
The first boxes (numbered 01, 02, 03, etc.) are pinkish and the last
few boxes (79, 80, 81) are greenish. The background is a single shade
of grey. I guess if I really really really try to play along with them,
the numbers at the top right (e.g., 07, 08, 09, and 16, 17, 18) seem
the "greyest" but none are really as grey as the background. If you
forced me at gunpoint to "enter a color patch number", I'd timidly type
"09", however reluctantly (which I did).
-----------------------------------
D. HOW DO WE INTERPRET THE ALIGN PRINTHEADS PRINTOUT REPORT?
The most cryptic of all printouts seems to be the align printheads
output report. It contains a confusing (to me) set of three arrays and
two objects which seem easier to interpret.
Section 1, from right to left, starting on the right side of the
landscape page is an object which looks like a seesaw sans fulcrum with
one person sitting backward. That is, it contains a black box with a
line eminating from one corner and another black box connected to the
line at another corner, all of which is dark and distinct (which I must
suspect is the main point). A bold green check arrow seems to indicate
OK (but maybe I'm stretching my interpretive skills by assuming that.)
Section 2, to the left of that black see-saw, is a blurry multi-color
parrot and a dark black arrow pointing to a distinct and bold
multi-color parrot. I also suspect this is fine (but how do I know)?
There is no check arrow under that parrot so I assume the prior green
arrow suffices.
Section 3, to the left of the two parrots, is a 7 by 7 vertical
oriented array of yellow, magenta, cyan, and black boxes, one set of
which is filled in while the other sets are excel spreadsheeted and one
of the sets is dashed lines. They look OK to me but what am I looking
for? This time there are 7 green check arrows at the bottom of the
page, these being the boldest green arrows on that printer test page.
Section 4, to the left of the excel spreadhseeted boxes are another
array, this time of 5 by 4 single color horizontal lines most of which
seem to be dark and bold except the yellow and black single large box
at the top have some streaks initially at the edge of the paper (the
yellow and magenta are bold throughout). In the many horizontal bars,
there are slight streaks in the black and even less in the blue, but in
both cases they are very slight in those 41 other rows. Of the five
green check arrows, first two (right to left) check arrows are very
bold, the next three have a slight bit of yellow on their thin tips (am
I stretching the interpretation to assume that slight bit of yellow is
significant?).
Section 5, on the left side of the landscape printout test page is
similar to the previous section except that the array of 2 by 4
horizontal oriented bars and dashed lines are now yellow, magenta,
cyan, and black instead of being a single color. Again, exept at the
very top edge of the paper where the colros for black and blue appear
slightly smudged (but not on all top bars), the colors seem perfectly
fine to me. Even the smudged parts are only on the beginning of the
blocks and only in some blocks, so I suspect this may be due to
"normal" edge-of-paper effects ??? The two green check marks at the
bottom of the page clearly have yellow tips and are otherwise bold
green (like a brush dipped in yellow & green paint).
-----------------------------------
D. HOW DO WE INTERPRET THE COLOR PALETTE PRINTOUT REPORT?
The color palette printout from
http://www.alotofthings.com/primer_palette/cpt3_.pdf seems to
contradict much of what is shown above. Worse yet, while most tests
shown above don't show me a problem, this page seems to show me
problems in "mixing" of colors.
Section RED is on the top row which shades from something called
"pagoda", to "vermillion", to "cardinal", to "scarlet", to "christmas",
to "carnival", to "chianti", and finally to "candy apple". These are
clearly red, but, none are what I'd call really bright red. They are
more like a blackish red, sort of like the darkish red of the Coca Cola
can my kid left on the kitchen table just now. Comparing with the
screen display of the PDF, they are a little darker and a bit less red
and more orangey than what I see on the computer.
Section ORANGE contains two rows of 8 squares each from "parchment" to
"ochre", which, in contrast, I'd say are more red than orange (but
who'se to say?). Certainly none are a bright pumpkin orange. Again,
they are sort of like a darkish orange color not too dissimilar than
the colors I see on the screen for that test PDF page.
Section YELLOW is bright, bold, and yellow, much like that of the PDF
test page on screen. I don't have any esthetic complaints, it seems,
about the yellows.
Section GREEN is very dissapointing. None of the 8 by 3 squares is as
vividly green as in the onscreen test PDF and only the last three
"turtle", "jungle" and "billiard" even remotely approach a green army
jeep color. The rest are actually almost fully yellow, with some having
green streaks going through them (but not all). So, the green section
is actually mostly yellow except for those three colors and perhaps the
"turf" color too.
Section BLUE is also disheartening as it's not even remotely blue.
Worse than the green (which at least had three greens) none of the
blues even remotely look like those of the test PDF on screen. They
start out as light yellow at the "Polar" and "Robin's Egg" boxes, turn
to grayish in the "teal" and "newport" boxes, switch to pinkish cyanish
in the "blueprint" and "french" boxes then to darker pinkish cyan in
the final "cobalt", "prussian" & "dresden" boxes.
-----------------------------------
SUMMARY:
-----------------------------------
I'm not sure what to interpret because the HP supplied test pages
"seem" to indicate the colors are OK'ish, while the arbitrary non-HP
test page seems to indicate otherwise. There is plenty of blue and some
bold green checkmarks in the HP test pages, but I'm almost totally
missing blue and green in the arbitrary non-HP test page.
I apologize for the lengthy details (I wanted you to have as much
information as I had).
Can you help interpret these results for me and the many others who
must follow?
Thank you in advance,
Susan Harm