Stop-age-now.com

Anyone with a modern printer knows full well that major brands like Hewlett Packard are infamous for programming their new smart ink and toner cartridges to tell the printer they are empty long before they approach a level that would affect print quality. This is supposedly done in order to prevent reduced print quality and to preserve the printer head from getting damaged from overheating or other causes, but realistically it has more to do with gently encouraging consumers to go buy more ink before they need to. However there are a couple of tricks that can be done to get the most out of your HP 2550 toner cartridge without running to the store to buy a replacement.

The first trick available to the savvy consumer is simply replacing the smart chip on the cartridge. This little chip on the bottom of the toner cartridge tells the printer when you are running low on toner (usually well in advance, as we discussed earlier). Unfortunately in some cases if one cartridge runs out of toner the printer simply stops working even if your other cartridges have more toner left over, forcing you to address the situation sooner rather than later. It is fairly easy to locate replacement HP 2550 toner smart chips on the internet, and they are often sold in sets for roughly $20 or a little more. The smart chips are only secured to the cartridge by double-sided tape, so simply snap out the old chip and use some more double-sided tape to replace it with the new reset chip and put it back in the printer.

If you don’t feel like spending the $20 or $25 to buy a set of HP 2550 toner reset chips then this next trick is for you. First, shut down the printer. Once the power is totally off press and hold down the big green button while you turn the printer back on. Don’t let go of the green button yet–let the printer initialize, during which the front lights will all turn on one at a time and then all but the ready light will turn off again one by one. Once only the first green light, the ready light, is the only light still on let go of the big green button and wait for the front lights to start flashing a few times. While those lights flash press and release the red circle button once, and then you’re done.

It may be necessary to reinstall the printer drivers after this process, but that is a comparatively simple procedure that may even happen automatically if your computer detects new hardware. If you don’t get the process right the first time simply keep trying until it works. Good luck!