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  • What Does HP Printer “Ink Cartridge Expired” Mean?
  • HP Photosmart Ink System Failure – Error: 0xc19a0035
• Other good stuff
  • Nigel Poulton did a great job covering EMC’s latest Symmetrix updates in VMAX Comes of Age
  • Chris Wolf is always worth reading; witness this week’s Hybrid Cloud Mobility: Converting the VM is the Easy Part
  • I also loved Tom Loverro’s piece, Android “Vista Pie”

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© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Back From the Pile: Interesting Links, December 24, 2010
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Everything, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

There you have it: The death of an HP PhotoSmart printer

Yesterday I discussed HP’s expiring photosmart ink cartridges and advised pressing “OK” to keep using them anyway. Today we talk about what happens when the ink system really does fail.

Ink System Failure; Error: 0xc19a0035

As I demonstrated yesterday, some (but not all) of HP’s inkjet cartridges have a pre-programmed expiration date. Though no one from HP could explain exactly what was expiring and why some of their other inks don’t expire, their online documents suggest dire consequences from dried-up ink. Presumably, one of those consequences is “ink system failure”, and that’s just what happened to my PhotoSmart C6180 recently.

I have no idea if my use of expired inks was responsible for this error, but it seems likely. Regardless, the message popped up and the printer refused to print any longer.

Following some hard-to-locate directions, I was able to reset the printer by holding down the “#” and “6″ keys during a power-on. The printer then came back to life and appeared to be printing just fine. Just to be sure, I printed out a test page and performed a head-cleaning operation.

Death of a Printer

About a week later, my PhotoSmart began acting up again. It started rebooting constantly, not even making it all the way through the power-up cycle before a harsh “click” and another restart.

Again, I followed the online suggestions: Plug the printer directly into the wall rather than a power strip or UPS; try a different outlet; perform a “#6″ reset. Nothing helped. The scanner head was mobile, so that wasn’t the issue.

It appeared to me that the power supply had failed, actually. But HP uses a brick with an odd 3-pin Molex connector so there was no way to test or replace it. And a replacement brick would be expensive, so I began shopping for a new printer – witness my “HP AirPrint-Compatible” article series!

What Do You Do With a Broken Printer?

New printers are severely marked down below already-cheap prices, so an old printer has little value and a broken one is junk. Repair and resale is not an option.

Happily, HP offers a recycling program called “Trade-in and Save“, where they will handle the recycling of your old printer and give you a credit towards a new one. The easiest way to use this program is to take your old printer to a bricks-and-mortar Staples store. They handle the recycling and shipping and will give you instant credit rather than a mailed rebate.

When recycling your printer, don’t forget to remove and recycle the ink cartridges! My old Photosmart C6180 had six cartridges worth $2 each at Staples. I also returned some spare unused ink cartridges I had purchased. All together, this reduced the cost of my new HP Photosmart C410a Premium Fax by almost $100!

Stephen’s Stance

I have no idea at all if my use of expired inks led to the “ink system failure” message, or if the “reboot cycle of death” was a result of either. But my 4.5-year old PhotoSmart printer expired.

Was this a case of planned obsolescence? I don’t think so. HP would be in serious trouble if they intentionally caused printers to fail based on calendar date or the use of expired inks, as some of my friends suggested. “Never assume malice“, I always say.

I was actually pretty happy with the performance of the printer over the years. Enough so that I decided to buy another HP PhotoSmart rather than switch to Epson, Canon, Lexmark, or someone else. I used the all-in-one quite a lot, actually, for scanning, faxing, photo printing, and standard printing and feel I got my money’s worth out of it.

I still believe it’s logical to press “ok” and continue using expired inks even if an ink system failure can result. The low cost and short warranty of the printer and high cost of replacement ink makes any other course a foolish one.

Note: Some of these links include affiliate codes that help pay for this blog. For example, buying an Amazon Kindle with this link sends a few bucks my way! But I don't write this blog to make money, and am happy to link to sites and stores that don't pay anything. I like Amazon and buy tons from them, but you're free to buy whatever and wherever you want.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | HP Photosmart Ink System Failure – Error: 0xc19a0035
This post was categorized as Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

My HP Photosmart inkjet printer just started complaining about "Ink Cartridge(s) Expired"!

HP’s inkjet printer ink cartridges are really expensive, so I’m always annoyed when my printer runs out. But my HP Photosmart C6180 started complaining that the cartridges are expired, prompting me to replace them before they’re even empty! I decided to look into the matter, and I’m not happy with the explanation.

How Does An Ink Cartridge “Expire”?

HP’s official ink expiration FAQ isn’t all that helpful. I came away wanting more information than the basic facts explained there:

• Most HP inks don’t expire, but those that do fall into two categories:
  1. HP 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 are expired as in dead and the expiration message means you must replace them immediately and can’t use them anymore. These expire based on months past warranty or since installation, whichever comes first.
  2. The expiration messages for HP 02, 18, 38, 70, 88, 177, 363, 777, and 801 are more like guidelines, so you can keep using the ink at risk of your warranty. It’s not clear why or when these expire.
• If the ink expires, it’s “to protect the system” from damage presumably caused by “air ingestion and water evaporation”.
• The printers listed are all a few years old. I’m no expert, but it looks like the more-modern HP printers don’t use expiring ink.

So, apparently, HP engineered their mid-2000′s ink cartridges to expire. Although I pressed for a better explanation from HP’s printer group, no elaboration was forthcoming. I guess I’m left to my own devices to figure this out.

How To Respond To The “Ink Cartridge(s) Expired” Message

What to do? Should you press "OK" and keep using an expired cartridge?

If you have a printer that expires ink cartridges (and allows you to override and continue working), you have a choice to make:

1. You can press the “OK” button and keep using the expired cartridge. This prevents you from wasting money on new ink when the old one still works, but HP says any damage caused as a result will not be covered under warranty.
2. You can replace the cartridge with a new one and waste whatever ink remained in the old one. This preserves your warranty but wastes costly ink.

I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that you press “OK” and keep using expired ink. Normally I wouldn’t recommend that people go against manufacturer recommendations, but this is a somewhat-special circumstance: The inkjet printer business is very competitive, with new printers heavily discounted in hopes of future ink sales. It probably make financial sense to risk damaging the printer instead of wasting the ink. The six inks in my HP Photosmart C6180 cost about half as much as an entire new printer that doesn’t use expiring ink.

Plus, the warranty on my Photosmart ran out years ago. In fact, I imagine almost everyone seeing the warnings above are no longer covered by HP’s standard one-year warranty! It’s hard to get too upset about such a short warranty period anyway, especially when replacement printers are so cheap.

Did this cause HP Photosmart Ink System Failure – Error: 0xc19a0035? I have no idea!

Stephen’s Stance

Although it’s incredibly wasteful to toss out a generally-functional printer, the economic angle is hard to argue. With no warranty to worry about and killer new models like the C410a costing under $225, why not just roll the dice with an expired cartridge? In fact, the D110A is currently on sale for the same $60 that buys a single set of inks for my C6180! Both of these support Apple’s new AirPrint technology, too!

So I continued the “right-arrow then OK” dance with my expired ink cartridges, and I suggest you do the same. When your printer finally dies, recycle it and step up to one that doesn’t use expiring inks.

Note: Some of these links include affiliate codes that help pay for this blog. For example, buying an Amazon Kindle with this link sends a few bucks my way! But I don't write this blog to make money, and am happy to link to sites and stores that don't pay anything. I like Amazon and buy tons from them, but you're free to buy whatever and wherever you want.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | What Does HP Printer “Ink Cartridge Expired” Mean?
This post was categorized as Apple, Everything, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

1. What are vital records versus ordinary records? I like this suggestion from another attendee: “Vital Record” is, by definition, a record without which the organization could not continue to function.
2. Would you consider Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable receipts and related backup documentations vital records? They may be vital to some businesses and not vital to others. I suspect that these would be much more vital in the short term and much less important after the year is closed out. But I can imagine scenarios where they would be required for decades.
3. It was mentioned that it was risky to scan paper into a electronic format without a written, compact retention policy. My question is this: If you are in the process of setting policy and adding to your policy and procedures manual is it still ok to scan? My boss has pushed for me to begin the conversion process even though I haven’t managed to complete the new policy and procedures. I think this is his way of showing his superiors that we are making progress on a project that they weren’t neccesarily behind in the first place. I would worry that you’ll waste effort scanning documents that shouldn’t be saved. But it’s better to duplicate and waste some effort than to not save at all. So scan away! But get that policy done too!
4. What about TIFF storage? Is that still viable? and For long term storage, why isn’t tiff G4 an option? TIFF is certainly a widely-used format for images, and G3 compressed TIFF will probably be readable a century from now (assuming we’re still here!) Plus, TIFF is (usually) lossless. However, it’s very flexible, and a TIFF file can contain lots of different data – you could easily create a TIFF that won’t be readable next week! Also, there have been some patent/royalty arguments about TIFF and related technologies. Finally, TIFF files tend to be huge (since they’re lossless) compared to other (lossy) formats. I like open standards like PNG better since they’re fully documented and portable, but TIFF is probably a decent choice.
5. When storing paper does the newer printing technology – inkjet, laser etc. match the archival quality of older paper and inks? and What do we need to know about the kind of paper that should be used for long term archiving? I’m concerned that newer technologies, including printer tech, won’t last like old ones. I have impact-printed pages from the 1980s that look like new, and laser-printed pages from the 1990s that are clear and clean. But my old inkjet pages are very faded. Now, this could have to do with the paper I chose, and it could be that old inkjet isn’t a predictor of new inkjet, but I’m skeptical. HP claims that their Vivera inkjet ink will last “108 years”, which seems oddly precise. I guess they took a Photosmart printer back to 1900 and printed out some pages? In all seriousness, be concerned about any claims like this that cannot possibly be tested. And consider handling as well – proper temperature, humidity, and storage will make documents last much, much longer!
6. Dry caskets of nuclear waste are dangerously radioactive for over 10,000 years. Consider the “pancake” drive: titanium disks written with an ion beam in both analog and digital. Even without ASCII, it can be read with an electron microscope. Now that is longterm storage. Do you really trust current formats for 50-100 years? Think of how much change there has been in the last 50 years. and If There was not a question of Blu-ray discs lasting for decades , what is your opinion on the technology as a viable archive solution? I’m skeptical of all unprovable longevity claims, since media has never lived up to them in the past! If I had to guess, I’d say that mechanical devices like disks and tapes will have more problems than plain discs, and that optical will last longer than magnetic. So I bet Blu Ray media will outlive most other current mainstream media.
7. If it isn’t vital you should not convert. On another project (our archives) I am trying to save and prevent any further damage to the records because they are currently stored in a basement with water leaks, rats, and no climate control. Is this instance how do you weigh the vital and non-vital? Specifically, I was asked to bring in outside companies to see what they had to say and get quotes after my warnings and price estimations were rejected. Any suggestions on how to get across the importance of not allowing these records to just rot? Rats don’t make great records managers! Seriously, though, I’d say that something is seriously out of whack when records are stored like this. Maybe you should come in to work one day and claim that all of the records are destroyed and see what reaction you get? But be sure to have another job lined up before you pull this stunt…
8. I just want to point out there is a whole profession that deals with this every day – the Archivist. Information can be found at www.archivists.org – they even have a group of Business Archivists that you can talk to. Thank you for that link – I’ll look into it!
9. Can you provide more information on what Open Standard Format is? I like standards that are well documented in public places – ASCII charts are freely available and widely distributed, for example. These are a message to future generations – when you encounter this file, decode it with this chart! But proprietary formats concern me, especially when their documentation isn’t freely available and open.
10. When will the presentation slides be available? The webinar and slides should be posted at AIIM’s site within two weeks.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Thoughts on Long-Term Archiving
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.