Some newer Hewlett Packard printers have included in the software that comes with their printers, a "toolbox" that includes a section called Estimated Ink Level. Its a great tool that allows you to keep track of how much ink is left in your cartridges so you don't start a big print job and get stranded out of ink in the middle of it. The only problem is that has become quite troublesome on those who wish to refill their cartridges. If you refill your cartridge or have someone else refill your cartridge, it will read as low or empty when you try to print with the cartridge. How does HP do it? They started embedding a serial number in the contact strip located on the back of the cartridge. The printer remembers that serial number and gives the message of low or out of ink. The internal memory is located in the printers firmware and is not in the software. It will remember the previous two cartridges ink level.
What this means, is that your "empty" cartridge was already recognized as empty by your printer, so when you refill it and insert it, it will still "remember" it as empty!
If you have a printer with this "new" (and annoying software), following these steps will get the printer to accept the refilled cartridge, you need 2 new spare HP 901 cartridges to get this to work.
-
Insert the refilled HP 901 cartridge into the printer. A message displays on the screen that the printer wants to print a test page with the cartridge. Allow this page to print completely.
-
Remove the cartridge and put it aside.
-
Insert a new HP 901 cartridge that is recognized. The test page message appears on the screen again. Allow the test page to print out completely.
-
Take the new HP 901 cartridge out of the printer. Place a second new HP 901 cartridge into the printer. When the test page message comes up, wait for the test page to finish printing.
-
Pull this third cartridge out of the printer, and return the refilled cartridge that you originally wanted to use (the one you refilled) to the printer. The test page message appears on the screen, and the printer once again prints a test page. At this point, the printer should read the refilled HP 901 cartridge as a new ink cartridge and the ink monitor should read as full.