Today I received the dreaded ink system failure error from my Hewlett Packard Photosmart printer. I as usual looked around the web to try and find an answer to my problems. I ended up taking ink in and out of the printer waiting for a certain length of time, putting it back in, manual error resets, cleaning the printer heads manually, kicking the printer and shaking the printer… all of that and it was still showing me the same error.
In a last ditch attempt I tried to find a manual hard reset for the unit (this actually proved quite hard to find). This however managed to get my unit back up and running! so I have included the steps below that I took to reset my printer.
HP C5180 All-In-One Printer HARD RESET:
Hold down HELP + OK button and unplug printer (could experiment with regular power-off, but I opted for brute force)Hold down HELP + OK button again as you plug the printer back in. Then power it on, if it doesn’t power on automatically. Be Safe: keep holding the buttons until the printer turns itself off. (It took mine less than a minute.)
Now you can release the buttons and simply power it back on. (I held my breath, but that’s not required.)
I got an error message about “improper shut down” since I unplugged it w/out powering down. After I clicked “OK” the printer was just fine and didn’t mind anymore. And now I can print.
Credit goes to http://www.mlnarik.com/jewel/2009/05/21/how-i-fixed-my-hp-c5180-printer/ for this information.
I hope it helps
Belinda Ryan says:
Thanks so much..I was just about to throw the printer in the trash because I was so frustrated with it. Nothing worked, not HP’s solution or any other. Your solution was so simple, I still can’t believe it’s working now.
Jul 23, 2009, 10:50 pmJohn says:
This works sometimes. If it doesn’t, try
http://www.thecomshack.com/hpc7180.htm
John Lace
Jul 23, 2009, 2:48 amRome says:
You are greatly thanked, this worked on my HP 6180 all in one as well. After taking to HP about fixing my problem they wanted a fee of 35.00 to I guess to tell me this or up grade to another printer. I was about to go out and buy another printer. Thanks again
Jul 23, 2009, 2:01 amNoelia says:
I did the reset once and again, and it works, but wasn’t able to print yet, cause every time I try to do it, the message shows up again!!! don’t know what to do, is there any other way to reset the printer?
Jul 23, 2009, 5:28 pmClara @ Hewlett Packard Online says:
Hello there, just doing some research for my Hewlett Packard website. Lots of information out there. Wasn’t what I was looking for, but great site. Have a great day.
Jul 23, 2009, 10:07 pmMike says:
On the HP C5180 you can access a special “Underware” menu by
1. left arrow + OK to get to “Enter Special Key Combo” page
2. left arrow, OK, right arrow to get to “Underware” menu
If you then use arrow keys to navigate to “boot code” you can activate Mfg Mode.
If you then turn off and on the printer, it boots up in Mfg Mode and seems to bypass errors and prints as it should, though some things may not work, like photocopying with the printer buttons, or the ink gauges, or refilling the print heads with ink when they run out. This last limitation of Mfg mode is a bit of a nuisance, so you might want to put it back into User mode using the same steps only choosing User mode instead of Mfg mode. When I did this, the printer showed the ink gauges empty, with a yellow exclamation mark, and whats most important, no error error that stops you from printing.
I used the printer like this for some time, but it ended failing again, so I just used it in Mfg mode all the time, switching to User mode when the print heads ran out of ink (sometimes doing a system reset to force it to go through the cycle where it loads ink) and then switching back to Mfg mode to bypass the ink system error.
But after 8 months of using it like this, today I switched modes to load some ink into the print heads and got no more ink systems errors, and I am now using it as HP intended, without problems.
Just thought I’d share.
BTW, turning the printer off in Mfg mode can give you the rainbow effect or black screen with white lines criss crossing effect, just press the power button and it should get back into MFG mode, though it prints equally well with the screens in those states.
I use my printer on a network, so don’t know if anything changes if used via a usb connection, also I have a CIS system (continous ink system), so I don’t know what happens if you do any of this with normal ink cartridges. (I recommend a CIS, sooo much cheaper! and same quality).
I would also point people to http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Other-printing-questions/Photosmart-C5180-Power-Up-Power-Down-Problem-Loops-on-off-on-off/td-p/132152/page/4 where it describes the process for changing a couple of capaciters from the mainboard which apparently tend to fail, or bulge as the learned people say.
Jul 23, 2009, 10:21 pm