"Geoffrey S. Mendelson" wrote in message
...
Phil Hobbs wrote:
I have an Epson all-in-one, which works great except that if even one
ink colour is low, it won't let you do _anything_. On Saturday it
wouldn't even let me _scan_ until I replaced the yellow ink.
I had that same problem with an HP6100. It told me it was out of black ink
and when I put a new cartridge in, it did an alignment page. It printed
out
some black lines and then failed.
It never told me that it was out of color ink too. I was about to throw it
away when I found an unopened set of catridges and replaced the color one
just because I had it. It did the alignment and now it is working.
I really did not care very much about the printing, I wanted to use it
as a black and white fax machine. Without two working cartridges (black
and color), it won't funtion at all. :-(
Geoff.
--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM
I have always found the management software on my HPs to be very good. The
5180 all-in-one that I'm currently using, informs you as soon as the ink in
any cartridge drops below about 85% at a guess, and continues to do so until
that cartrige is empty. It does this via both a screen pop-up on the
computer that's requesting service from it (it's a network device), and a
message on its own little LCD screen. It will then continue to give you the
option to print in black only - assuming it's not the black that's run out
of course - before finally shutting down completely, presumably to keep
enough ink in the pipes etc to prevent drying out. If I've ever hit this
condition, and not had a replacement cartridge in the drawer, I've always
just gone to the store and bought one, so I don't know if scanning stops as
well.
Arfa