HP EZPZ-Diagnosing problems

Last month I received my HP Photosmart Premium c310a e all in one printer from our friends at HP.

The set up was quick.  Getting it hooked up to our wireless network was a snap.

We printed up a couple of test pages from various computers in the house and were amazed that it printed each and every time.

Clearly we are entertained very easily at our house.

The Chicken, my twelve year old daughter, had to print some photos up of Greek architecture for a project and was so excited that I didn’t have to email the photos to my computer to print out.

When she went downstairs to get the photos out of my office I heard five words that I never want to hear coming from my office.

“Mom , we have a problem!”

Except they weren’t all calm, they were shouty and frantic.  Visions of my computer in a million pieces danced through my head.

I came down to see that the photos that she printed out were missing colors and were streaky.  I instantly thought it was something she had done and not the pretty new printer’s fault.

I tried to print the pages again.  Again they were streaky with colors missing.  I tried with our other printer and the ph0tos turned out perfect.

I am sure at this point you are wondering what this has to do with EZPZ.

I decided to trouble shoot the problem.  Using the touchsmart interface was really very user friendly.  I was able to align the printer and clean the cartridges.

The problem persisted.

I then opened up the HP Utility center on my computer where I was able to run a print quality diagnostic.  On this report I could see just about information I wanted to about my printer.  It told me how much ink I had, when I installed it, when my ink warranty ended, how many pages I printed on my printer and most importantly how to get further assistance with my print quality.

Upon the recommendation of my printer I did a deep cleaning and then another deeper cleaning.  The streaky issue still remained and so the HP Utility center suggested I contact HP directly to get a new print head.

I would love to tell you that my conversation with the nice gentleman that lived outside of Toronto was quick.  It wasn’t. I spent over an hour on the phone with HP support trying to fix my problem.

He was very thorough and polite in the process to fix my problem.  After an hour the same solution that the printer told me was the solution that he came to as well.  I didn’t spend the money to overnight the new print head and ink, although I love that if I needed it quickly I could have.

Two days later a parcel from HP arrived at my front door.  Inside was the print head, ink, instructions on how to replace the print head & ink, wet wipes to clean off the contacts, and a package to send the defective unit and ink back.  Installing the new equipment was so easy.  I was done in just under five minutes and the printer even aligned itself when it was all said and done.

Now we are again in the happy land of wirelessly printing in our house.  Now to try out all the other features!