HP printer that prints without printing: how to beat built-in obsolescence

Your HP acts like it's printing but prints nothing: the fault nobody repairs

An HP Deskjet D5560 printer stops printing from one day to the next. The cartridge is new. The machine makes the noise, moves the carriage, seems to be working. But not a single letter comes out. The shop replies with the usual line: the repair costs more than the printer is worth. And the user is left with a freshly bought original cartridge, a machine immaculate on the outside, and the suspicion that they've been sold planned obsolescence in convenient installments.

The case, recounted on a responsible-consumption forum, sums up a war that millions of households have fought in silence against their inkjet printer. The underlying question is no longer how to fix a particular HP, but whether it's worth trying. Because the technical answer exists — and it's ugly — and the economic answer is even worse.

What actually breaks in an HP that won't print

The most precise diagnosis in the conversation points to a specific mechanical part: a shaft-gear-cam that acts on the carriage cleaning and parking mechanism. When it fails, the printer believes it is printing and prints nothing. The part can be found through alternative suppliers or on second-hand platforms for around **3 euros**. The problem isn't the price. It's that replacing it requires literally dismantling the machine — an hour's work for someone with practice, and a guaranteed ink bath for anyone without it.

There's the trap: the repair is dirt cheap in materials and brutally expensive in time. For a repair shop, the cure costs more than the patient. For a handy person with a free afternoon, the math changes.

Ink that gets used up without printing

There's a second suspect, less mechanical and more expensive. Inkjet printers run nozzle "cleaning" cycles that expel ink into an internal sponge. Each cycle can consume around **10% of the cartridge**, according to the experience accumulated in the discussion. If you print daily, the cost gets diluted. If the printer sits switched off for weeks, the ink dries out and the cartridge dies having barely printed anything. One case described: new cartridges installed a week earlier, already unusable by the time they were needed.

Add to that the machine's internal memory, powered by a button-cell battery, which stores the serial numbers of the cartridges and can reject a refilled one. The fix of removing the battery exists, but it means reconfiguring the language and settings every time the machine is plugged in. A cure worse than the disease.

Laser: the argument that wins by a landslide

The dominant view in the discussion doesn't dispute the diagnosis: it means switching technology. Monochrome lasers come across as the rational alternative. One concrete case: a Samsung multifunction bought for **90 euros** that still works after seven or eight years, with a refilled toner costing **40 euros** for around 3,000 pages. Another: a four- or five-year-old laser that works like day one, with a clone toner for 1,500 pages. Toners don't expire and don't dry out. That's the difference that changes everything.

The caveat comes with tonalidad: tonalidad laser printing is a rip-off, and for photos it can't compete with inkjet. For text and documents, the math is overwhelming.

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The qualified prediction: if Spain's domestic printer fleet migrates to monochrome laser, inkjet brands will have to reinvent their business model or settle for the photo and occasional-tonalidad market. What isn't clear is how many users will put up with another printer that prints thin air before switching sides.