Printer Lameness

Remember that new Epson C84 printer that I bought last year?! Well, looks like it may be kerbusted.

A couple of days ago, it told me that I needed to replace my black ink cartridge.
No Problem.
Being the ultra-prepared person that I am (anal?) I have extra ink cartridges ready to go.

So, I popped it in, and......................

nothing.

no black ink where there should be black ink.

The other colors work fine.

After cleaning the heads, and performing the nozzle check a couple of dozen times from both my Mac and my PC, I thought perhaps I had a bum ink cartridge. (Which is a huge bummer, because the things cost some serious dough).

So today I went to Office Max, and bought another cartridge.

I shook it, as instructed, and popped it in..... still nothing.

That's when I called technical support.

First of all, since it's just out of its one-year warranty, they said they'd have to charge me $9.95 for my call. whatever Then they asked me to do all of the steps that I'd already done to trouble-shoot. Which I told them I had done several times.

Ultimately, since I was on my second cartridge, and I had done a very thorough job of troubleshooting on my own, they said it is a hardware problem, and I'd have to take it to a shop. Well, that wasn't terribly helpful!

One nice thing: since I had already bought two cartridges, and done thorough trouble-shooting on my own, they said they would not charge me the $9.95 for the call.

Thank you.

So now I have to call these places (in Emeryville, or Fremont!) and see if it's worth bringing in or not.

This blows.