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HP review: printer is hopeless! 49

K
Author of the review
12:00 am EDT
Featured review
This review was chosen algorithmically as the most valued customer feedback.

I am totally misguided by the misleading advertisement of HP about its printer HP Officejet Pro K 550. The design of the printer is hopeless. Brainless design, mindless manufacturing and dumping on the customers for their fate. The printer jams more frequently. It takes its own sweet time for the print to come. It is not easy to feed the printer. You have no chance to see and feel, if you have placed the papers in the tray properly or not. The printed doc is thrown out. You had it, once there is a paper jam.

Customer is helpless, since he has made a wrong choice trusting HP and its brand name. I wish if HP can replace this model with another comfortable model printer purchased one and half month back.

I have two more printers namely Laser4000N and laser 4L scrapped for its faulty functioning.

K Pani,
Bangalore - 560 004.

49 comments
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therealmawa
, DE
Jun 26, 2010 3:21 pm EDT

I've been using this printer for over four years, so far I've printed 5802 pages with it, including a two-digit number of copies of my master's thesis (on highest quality setting) and a good number of photos as well as proofs for several books. The printer certainly has its flaws - it's huge, noisy and will shake apart any table it sits on, and of course there are the feed problems others have mentioned. On the other hand, I've never had any trouble in the ink department, the photo output is gorgeous (which is unusual for an office printer) and regular b/w printing is very fast. And running costs are truly low, even using original HP consumables only. I'm still on the original two print heads, which are by now nearly two years and a half past the end of their warranty, and ink cost is really low with XL cartridges. I think the Pro K550 gives good value overall and I will keep it till it falls apart; yet I can understand why its reputation is so bad that HP renamed the product line.

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wings
, US
Jun 24, 2010 12:51 pm EDT

I use the one at my work. And it always fails on me. I think it has a mind of it's own and just doesn't like me.

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Grnat
Spokane, US
Mar 25, 2010 12:51 pm EDT

I have been running this printer now for over 2 years and have had ZERO problems. This printer has been the office workhorse and I wish I would have bought a second one when they were on clearance!

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GINGER OLSEN
Apopka, US
Aug 13, 2009 1:03 pm EDT

i read have of the comments... i have had this printer for 6 years, I LOVE IT., .. It prints the best pictures which is why i bought it. i rarley have jams maybe 4 in 6 years. sound like most folks dont know how to take care of it. IT IS THE BEST... I ONLY CAME ON HERE TO INSTALL THE HEADER CLEANING SPFTWARE. I HAVE LINES GOING DOWN MY PRINTER AND YES ITS BEEN 6 YEARS OF PERFECT KODAK PICT, , AS IF I HAD IT PROFES DONE. TAKE CARE OF YOUR RIGHT AND YOULL GET ALOT OF LIFE OUT OF IT.

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Myles O'Brien
, IE
May 25, 2009 10:24 am EDT

I bought this printer a year ago and to date i have only printed Fifty pages of rubish on it. it did not work out of the box and when I tried to make a call about it I was on the phone forever and got nowhere. I retried to get the printer to work and went as far as to buy new ink for it and still i have no results I have given up on this machine I spent a lot of money and have nothing to show for it. All of my printers were up to this point bought from HP AS AND FROM NOW I WILL BE LOOKING ELSEWHERE. I feel let down by HP.

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OP Van Leeuwen
Keizer, US
Apr 19, 2009 1:11 am EDT

My daughter's boss had an relatively new HP-550 and had become so frustrated with it jamming that she told my daughter to take it "outa here". She obliged, knowing that I am a tinkerer and would enjoy a challenge. At home I watched it smash sheet after sheet of paper. The problem seemed obvious to me so I opened the printer, polished and lubricated the paper handling track and now, for over two years, no more wrinkled paper. I offered to send it back to my daughter's place of employment, but they said that they didn't want to see it. OK, fine with me, thank you! As for it using too much ink, I don't care (if, in fact, it's true), I just refill the cartridges and print anything and everything that I want.

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sue Hodnett
tiverton, GB
Mar 09, 2009 2:58 pm EDT

am considering using Royal Mail Smart Stamp to print postage labels to then fix onto envelopes and packages - suspect this may well be cheaper than the franking machine we currently use (costing a fortune in ink). Find this OfficeJet Pro K550 a nightmare for feeding paper - difficult to oad paper in. Does anyone have any info about using it with franking labels - is it possible?

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Dave
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Nov 24, 2008 11:41 am EST

I must be lucky too. I've had this printer for at least 2 years, still have the same print heads it came with. Rarely jams, always stops printing when ink runs out. Does shake though if not in a secure place. My biggest complaint is that like EVERY PRINTER I'VE EVER OWNED(!) is that it does an Awful job of printing envelopes. I can spend up to an hour finding just the right place to position the envelopes so that the printer will even take the envelopes with out rejection. At least 2 out of 10 envelopes is so badly printed (Crooked, wrinkled etc) as to be unusable. I'd pay good money for a printer that actually does this one function if nothing else. I am a slave driver with printers. If they were horses, I'd be arrested for cruelty! I ride them into the ground and get another after the service bill exceeds half the original cost of the printer. I probably print a case of paper year, 2-3 dozen full color pictures (works fine) with this printer and won't buy another until it's "dead".

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Paul Hogue
,
Nov 24, 2008 10:24 am EST

I got one for my father. The first failed all around the first day. We took it back, and got a new one. It would work for a while, and work well, but then fail. We had to constantly update firmware and drivers. Now suddenly nothing will work. We have followed every troubleshooting step, yet it is dead in the water. Here's the thing: We bought this because it was supposed to be more reliable and an easy printing solution (Dad's in his eighties...you know what I mean). Instead, it has tied us up for sometime. What a waste of money. I think replacing the printheads would work, but there's no way we're going to fork out that kind of cash.

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caprig
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Nov 18, 2008 1:44 pm EST

Wow, I must be an unusual person. I have had this printer for about 2 years now and I have never had any problems with it at all- except an occasional paper jam if the paper is not seated correctly in the paper bin. Other than that, I have really been happy with it, and I use it constantly for printing school papers and business stuff.

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John
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Oct 12, 2008 1:56 am EDT

I have had a k550 for about 18 months, during which time I have produced about 2600 prints mostly of black text. My observation is that there is a problem with these printers due to frequent poor feeding where additional sheets are drawn through the printer. This renders the duplex printing unreliable to the point of useless because it almost always occurs and destroys the duplexed page order. The machines are also excessively noise during start-up.

Additionally, although I don't do much colour printing the cyan cartridge has just failed. I regret purchasing this printer. My regret is increased by the fact that I have also owned a HP Designjet 100 A1 printer for about 5 years which was replaced as a complete unit about a year ago due to an electronics module failure, which cost me about $1, 000 including items wrongly purchased due to bad advice from HP technicians. The replacement unit has just failed due to a ink assembly failure, resulting in a $77 repair if I repair the unit myself, or minimum $280 repair if HP repair the machine. Fortunately I can repair it, but I don't expect this sort of failure rate from a printer costing initially more than $2, 200.

From my overall experience of HP products I am convinced that the quality of HP products has fallen considerably in recent years, and as a result, I will never buy another HP product.

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jerry eason
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Oct 11, 2008 3:36 pm EDT

i also bought a hp compaq--had a problem--they have had my new computer for a month and a half now--and now they say it will be that long again--

take my advice don't buy aa h-p product or compaq computer

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ITGuy
Las Cruces, US
Oct 02, 2008 4:11 pm EDT

I have to agree with those complaining about this model in particular and HP's quality in general. I had purchased many of the K550's for my company, they were not cheap but the quality certainly was. Little plastic pieces dropped out of God knows where on most of them, poor design quality of the tray causes many headaches because it jams up. The paper doesn't ever seem to fit right. Some of these printers will feed half of the page THEN starts printing the top of the page halfway down the paper. This is not the only monumentally screwed up HP printer I have dealt with this year either. We have several HP 1020's which are utter crap! Their duty cycle must be 5 pages per month then the damn things start squeaking and squealing, eventually it starts shedding a somewhat thin, plastic sheet which I assume is coming from one of the rollers. On top of that, the print spool service is now crashing when users attempt to print PDF files to it. It is well documented on the HP forums, but nobody other than the poor souls who are relying on these printers is helping. Not even a single HP tech. support person has chimed in or explained why the printer is incompatible with one of the most common file types out there. HP has lost my business and now Brother has a shot to impress me. HP, what has happened to you? I know your motives are shady! I have an HP 4Plus that has to be 15 years old and it is going strong (I have never had to replace any parts on that printer and it is a true work-horse). Now consumers are being forced to buy over-priced, plastic-filled, low-yield junk that has to be replaced in a year or less. What a scam.

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Bill
,
Aug 04, 2008 1:46 pm EDT

I have worked with a great many printers in my life and the K550 is the biggest piece of trash HP has brought to market. I can understand those that work for HP sticking to their guns saying this is a good machine, well. I have (7) seven of these and sorry to say that only (2) are in working order and that is basically due to their lack of use. The last unit purchased was DOA right out of the box, so I called HP and they walked me through testing the unit - the printers paper feed mechanisn that pulls paper from the first tray (our unit had the extra paper tray) would drop down and stay down, so when you pulled out the tray, inserted more paper and pushed it back in the mechanism would crunch the top sheet causing a paper jam on the next run and the only way to correct the problem for maybe one print job was to manually push the mechanish up, unplus the unit and cycle the power. So they sent me another unit, which was a refurbished unit even though mine was onely one day old, did the same thing, and the second one they send did the same thing. Now I have pulled all but two from service and replaced them with other HP printers but nothing that resembles the K550 as I was told by the reseller and the HP tech that they were discontinued for this and other technical reasons.

I still use HP printers but this model is the worst that I have seen in a long time. I will say that I do have one in service for over a year, but, that unit does not get the use that the others do, and for those that have had good luck with them, then it must be a change in production somewhere that is causing these issues.

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Jason
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Jul 31, 2008 9:15 pm EDT

I agree. This is the worst printer I've ever had. I have the duplex unit and have printed thousands of pages through this printer. After thousands of prints over the past 2 years, I can honestly say that this printer jams every 20 to 30 pages when using the duplex unit. When it begins to run out of ink, instead of politely stopping printing and flashing a warning light or some such thing as most modern printers do, it simply begins to negate that color on your prints. This is very frustrating, especially when you've queued up 50 prints, walked away, came back and found that your printer ran out of ink on the 5th print, rendering the remaining 45 useless. I can't tell you how many times this printer did this to me. I can honestly say that this printer, and the free replacement that HP sent me has cost me hundreds of man-hours. THE ONLY GOOD thing about this printer is that I got so sick of working on it that I went out and leased a $2, 500 color laser that works flawlessly and prints far nicer looking flyers. The next weekend that I have the time, I'll be taking this printer out into the desert and shooting holes in it with every weapon I can get my hands on. I truly hope that whoever designed and tested this printer before HP began selling it was strung up and keelhauled. They desperately need it.

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Jeff
,
Apr 29, 2008 2:02 pm EDT

I agree with the poster. This printer is absolute crap. We bought 10 of the them for our school. We've had an 80% failure rate in the first month! We've even had them "repaired, " and sent back and they still don't work.

To the first poster, I too am HP certified and I'm certifying this printer as a piece of junk.

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Bill
,
Feb 19, 2008 4:23 pm EST

I have owned about 24 HP printers in my computer lifetime. The K550 is the first HP I can honestly say is not up to expectations. Paper jams, skipping pages, and black printing problems began plaguing me after about 6 months of use. I would not buy an HP inkjet printer again.

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Giancarlo Cimino
,
Feb 07, 2008 7:35 pm EST

Having read so many complaints I should say that I am lucky. I printed 2277 pages until yesterday and had no serious problems. In accordance with the configuration page "First installation date 2007-03-26. Printhead Health
Status all "fair". In the Event Log it shows 7 Firmware error and one paper jam. No errors since November 28 2007. Firmware version [protected] SPP0013H. I am very happy with my K550 printer. I believe that the habit of printing a purging test patter once a week helps to keep the printhead clean and also avoid the drying of ink.

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Kirsten Shirer
,
Jan 29, 2008 12:53 pm EST

My K550 worked great for a while, then the black printing problem appeared. I changed the printhead twice with only marginal improvement. I just installed the firmware flash available on the HP support site, however, and it worked like a charm. Try flashing the firmware so it's current (SPP0013H) if your K550 refuses to print in black. Worked for me.

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Steve McClean
,
Jan 18, 2008 11:06 am EST

Totally agree with problems experienced. Why does it seem that HP certified so often means 'unable to comprehend customers legitimate complaints'? I had two of these printers, first one lasted 6 months - a ridiculous amount of money was spent on replacing cartridges/printheads to no avail. I experienced false readings of remaining ink levels, inability to print consistently without jamming (on branded IQ paper 80gsm), and noisy, clunky operation. I find it astonishing that someone has the audacity to call this a 'flawless design'. That's company loyalty (read: brainwashing) if ever I heard it. The second unit lasted three months, same problem of paper jams, but the printer really spat the dummy when printing on HP labels, and decided to wrap them around the print carriage to such a point that the printer was inoperable.

The low(ish) cost of the printer does not excuse this being a bad product. We are all very much aware that printers are produced with a view to profit being made from consumables (ink/printheads/paper/toner/etc.) A previous comment of 'what do you expect for such a low price' is utter nonsense.

Incidentally, I have now changed to a HP Officejet K5400, hoping the teething troubles of the K550 may have been ironed out. Wrong! It is sat near to me with an amber light flashing (suggesting that there is a problem with the magenta colour cartridge). Guess what - I have replaced the cartridge with 2 different brand new HP colour magenta cartridges and the problem persists.

The ink level indicator told me yesterday that the magenta cartridge was half full. Today, after printing fewer than twenty sheets in draft black, it now tells me that the magenta cartridge is empty.

Half a day's work was lost trying to solve the problem, including a call to HP technical, only to be asked 'have I been to the website to try and solve the problem myself? The answer was 'yes' so I was put on hold. Eventually I was transferred to another 'techie' (again a lady with a very poor grasp of the English language) and was put on hold again. After listening to 'Love Is All Around' (Wet Wet Wet), 'Just The Way You Are' (Barry White), 'Wonderful Life' (Black) and 'I'll Make Love To You' (Boyz 2 Men) it was eventually decided that the printer may be 'broke'. Top of the detective class for that one.

This would not be such a problem as I know the ink cartridge is full, but as if to rub salt in the wound, the machine will not let you print whilst the light is flashing so therefore all productivity stops. Not only that you are also unable to print a diagnostic page, test page or alignment page. Thanks HP.

I stick with them because the printers are great when they work - but at what cost?

I am to receive a replacement K5400 printer in a weeks time - don't know what I'm supposed to do in the meantime. Perhaps I'll buy in a large quantity of cartridges and printheads (just in case).

Steve.

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Tony D'Ambrosio
,
Jan 12, 2008 9:22 am EST

I've had lots of problems; also very good results. Steep learning curve. Also, lots in the manual and takes time to absorb it. Also, drivers upgrade helped. Finally: black/yellow printhead seems iffy. Black frequently dries out. Short term fix seems to be briefly dip nozzles in hot water, jog a bit, blot a bit, reinsert, print a page or two to get clear water and get to ink, and it's good to go ... for a while.

When working, and used constantly, seems even after 1-1/2 years, to go pretty well, so I'm not complaining. When I've something BIIIG to print I can pump out a few hundred pages in a jiff. If it's 2-sided, I just flip and refeed; so for big jobs, this is a good printer. But for time-intermittant and low-volume stuff, it's unreliable and too quirky. Just last evening, for example, I had a simple 2 page job and 1 page streaked the black; I just printed on my other computer's Epson R300, but I oughtn't have to do that.

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gurdeep
,
Dec 20, 2007 5:34 am EST

I will never buy HP Product again...

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G Kay
,
Dec 20, 2007 5:09 am EST

Hi

I read all these comments as I was trying to fix my K550 which had stopped printing black - wish I'd done that before forking out for a new catridge to no avail
However, I emailed HP supper via their webpage at http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/email?product=501369&lc=en&cc=uk&dlc=en&aoid=null&lang=en&cc=uk and had a reply within an hour (evening, UK time)
I'ts a shame the info they gave me (which worked fie) was not available on the website, but I can't fault their customer service.
I find the printer very fast, and gives good quality colour even on 'normal' paper - for the dreaded christmas letters!
Hopefully their fix and flash hardware update will solve the problem in the longer term too.

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ericas
,
Dec 17, 2007 1:11 pm EST

Printer has actually worked great since we got it, printer 50+ pagers/day in color & B&W. Only complaint is it won't let me select a single page to print. It gives me some sort of draw error. Any ideas anyone?

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Hugh Johnson
,
Nov 28, 2007 8:37 am EST

I bought a K550. Two weeks after purchasing, it started making a loud grinding noise. Got a replacement from HP because if you buy online from Office Deport you're pretty much SOL. HP sent me a printer that worked for about 6 pages and then I got the ominous Paper Jam error. I've cleaned and worked on it according to HP's service instructions to no avail. They wanted a ten touch test page, but I can't even get the printer through startup without the Paper Jam error occurring.

They'll graciously send a replacement. I offered to let them have this POS, give me credit and buy a 5400. Well, they can only give me $36 in for the K550. What! The printer has never worked, new or the replacement model. Does HP care what customers think?

I have several older laserjets and they're great. Their newer stuff, though, seems to have been 'self-destruct' engineered.

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brian ponganis
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Nov 19, 2007 11:25 am EST

I hate it!

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L. Horsley
,
Oct 04, 2007 5:04 am EDT

Just purchased the K550 for our school. Right out of the box it wouldn't print black ink. I spent 2 1/2 hours talking with technical support at HP (in India) yesterday in order to resolve this issue. They are sending out a new black print head, but after reading these reviews, I have a feeling this is just the beginning of problems, not the end solution. I do appreciate the post on how to get the print heads to move over so you can remove or insert them.

This printer makes more noises and squeaks than you would ever believe. I thought I must have installed something incorrectly, but the HP tech guy said those are the normal noises! Plus, if you have this printer on anything but an extremely study table, you're going to have it shaking big time. Good luck to all of us that are using this printer. I feel that HP should replace all of them with a printer that works. I should have found these comments prior to having ordered this printer. Sheesh.

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Richard Roxborough
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Sep 26, 2007 6:36 am EDT

It jams frequently, is noisy, but the biggest issue by far is that a printhead is lasting about 1000 pages. I am getting through printheads quicker than the ink.

This is not right. After 15 years I have decided its goodbye to HP.

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Ross Thomas
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Sep 26, 2007 4:45 am EDT

Like everyone else I was seduced by the price and the (at the time) favorable reviews and purchased one for our school. The first one we had lasted about a week before it started jamming - we use good quality paper and it was loaded correctly. HP eventually replaced this under warranty and we have had intermittent black ink problems ever since. Now it is out of warranty, it has finally decided that no matter what I do to the print heads it won't print black. The guy who "personally service these printers and the design is flawless" needs to get some experience in good design cos this ain't it.

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Stephen Gaherty
,
Sep 21, 2007 7:40 am EDT

Sorry all of you have had such bad experience. My K550 has been in service for over a year and has operated flawlessly, printing hundreds of color diagrams a day.

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Gary Olson
,
Sep 07, 2007 6:03 am EDT

I fully agree with every post I've seen. HP has gone down hill big time and my K550 sucks too. Japan returned them to us because they thought they sucked. What burns me is when I spoke with HP about the junk they're making these days they sounded offended and very defensive, as if it were not true. The K550 reminds me of the model 9xx digital camera they made and I was dumb enough to buy... Believe me, this has become the standard for HP - JUNK!

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mattharwood
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Sep 06, 2007 4:28 am EDT

I work on printers all day long, every type and make and at only £87 (ciao.co.uk), I don’t think you can really complain ok a few simple truths you buy cheap you get cheap for not much more money you can get a HP Colour LaserJet 2600n £135.81 ok so they do cost more in consumables but that’s life. Printers are not pc's a very simple truth, printers have moving parts unlike most parts of pc's, so do wear out and are easy to make go wrong, paper travels through them so any obstruction will cause problems, paper should always be good quality and correct specification not the cheap thin stuff, you will always get paper jams with that rubbish and the printer is designed to print on paper in the manufacturers specification, this is to do with weight of paper roughness of surface etc use the correct stuff your only robbing yourself with using cheap paper (time, stress, lost man hours, etc). If you don’t print often and when you do the print is streaky clean the printhead using the software if this does not work take out the printhead and soak them in boiling water for 10 minutes and use software again, this will often clear the dry ink from the printhead. And just so you know there are worse printers out there that cost a lot more than £87. Slow printing is often more to do with software than hardware so you need to look at the spec of the pc, network card type is it a 10 or a 100 mbps, length of cable etc and size of the print being sent to the printer. Complaining about a printer not working with windows xp64 is a waste of time you should be complaining about window xp 64 and not the printer chances are you need to look into the install of the driver you don’t need to install the whole package just install the driver with the add printer option and the base driver. All in all so far Ive not had much trouble sorting these officejets out general maintenance really. And one last thing if an inkjet last over a year thank your lucky stars and just fork out for a good colour laserjet.

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Sammy L Jones
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Sep 05, 2007 12:11 pm EDT

I was just browsing for so HP help and opened quite by accident this complaint page. wow! everything I've read I have experience. I hate to go buy another hp I was using the 7130 but wanted more speed. Big mistake!

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Halldis Kelly
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Aug 24, 2007 11:26 pm EDT

I totally agree with the people complaining about this printer. Mine is brand new, and worked well for about a week. After that, things have gone in the ditch. Tonight I sit here trying to finish a project, but the damn thing jams on every single page, feeds extra sheets between pages, prints partial pages (if I hold the release paper button down enough)... I bought this printer to replace my last HP printer, which also sucked! That one had big time problems with paper-feed as well, but I was assured this new HP would solve that problem! I will never ever ever buy an HP Printer again! I can't believe how much money I've thrown away on HP products... not to mention the time, aggravation, and missed deadlines due to unbelievably bad performance (and I DO use the term performance quite loosely in this context!)

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Frank
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Aug 21, 2007 8:39 am EDT

Thanks for the heads up... the print heads were all fu***ng clogged. Swapped them out... all is good. Tanks!

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Richard Hudson
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Aug 20, 2007 4:26 pm EDT

OK so pictures don't work on this page... but sure enough it jammed... twice.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i41/richii_photos/08-20-07_1512.jpg

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Richard Hudson
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Aug 20, 2007 11:47 am EDT

This printer model sucks. I have seen about 3-4 of them in the last few months and guess what. All of them have had some sort of problem thus the reason for my looking at them. I had HP replace one under warranty and they shipped the wrong model (without network) Another user decided to replace the unit entirely with a different printer although I did get it up and running.

ANOTHER THING...

How about when you open the cover the print heads don't move to where you can get them out. I am having trouble with the new unit they just replaced (using the old print heads) to get them out. I stumbled on this forum because I was looking for a fast way to clean them without having to install the drivers on my machine as it is someone else's printer.

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Lemonade Soda
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Aug 20, 2007 9:20 am EDT

This printer absolute rubbish. NEW PRINTER straight out of box... does not work. Bumps, whizzes and whirs. The network access works. But will it print? No. Not even a configuration page. Just get a few weird boxes in yellow, red and blue.

Awful waste of EUR 180 and 3 hours work.

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Rodrigo Camps
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Aug 16, 2007 10:29 am EDT

I get caught by the promise of a reliable, fast and economic printer. I bought a set of six printers for my company. Now I have to look for non critical task to use them as they are useless with preprinted forms. They break the paper all the time. I cannot use them for billing. They also cannot print on thin paper but just 80 grams or more.

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Lawrence Jackson
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Jul 28, 2007 9:34 pm EDT

K550 is now an anchor as the printer will not work with my new OS Windows XP 64. There drivers do not load. There is no tech help, just some poor sap who will send your call into limbo. I will certainly purchase some other brand for work or home. I am finished with the HP crap. This is really sad!