I bought an HP LaserJet M1522nf MFP printer and connected it to my in-house ethernet network. I have two main PCs that I use (one upstairs and one downstairs), plus miscellaneous others and virtual machines that come and go, so I wanted to be able to print from any of them independent of the state of any other computer. Excellent.

But I noticed on its built-in website that it listed exactly how many pages it could print before the cartridge would be empty. I initially assumed that was an estimate.

But it's enforced!

When the count got down to zero, it refused to print and said I had to replace the cartridge.

I'm currently skirting the enforcement. I took the cartridge out and rocked it like we used to to get a little more mileage out of older printers' cartridges, put it back in and cycled power. When it came to, it was reporting an error, 10.1000 Supply memory error. As a result, it lets me keep on printing. And the copies look just fine.


So why does HP think they can dictate that I replace the cartridge before it's truly empty? Isn't that at least wasteful if not cheating me out of the toner I purchased?

Has anyone else noticed this?

they give the std Microsoft answer

To ensure the quality of your printing experience .

it makes no sense but this is a big company so..........

the only way it makes sense is CASH $$$$$$
the HP cartridge is sent back to HP for recycling WITH ink in it
that way they need to refill it with LESS ink .

PS. the ink cartridge has a CHIP in it for the print counter
and if not reset back to zero you can not even print using a refill from office max

officeMax and OfficeDepot sell refiled BUT the counter is NOT RESET

you would have to hack the printer cartridge .

On many of those you can reset that number.

Almost all printer companies make their real profit on the supplies. I can't say it is bad or not but that is the way it is. Get a dot matrix or pin type printer. They are the most inexpensive way to print.

Someday we will all have our own personal computers and we won't need to print out pages.


The best thing you can do is not print what you don't absolutely need. Dunno how many millions of dollars a week my company prints off useless stuff.

That's an interesting perspective.

I have several of my own PCs, but I still need to print some things. For example, most companies refuse to do business by email, sadly, so I have to print out a letter and send it by snail mail. Also, I've seen enough lost data that I still print financial statements.

I suggest an alternative for HP's measurement method.

I suspect that they have no reliable way of knowing exactly how much toner is used per print job nor for measuring actual toner levels in the cartridge. I'm not suggesting that measuring the cartridge level is impossible, only that it is likely to be far too expensive (sensors, detection hardware/software, etc.) to implement in a consumer product.

I suggest that they might be measuring number of pages as a convenient though arbitrary and not-very-accurate yardstick.

My thoughts are guided by this prinicple: Never blame conspiracy when stupidity is a more likely answer.

In many situations that principle is very appropriate.

But we're talking about HP. The technological achievement of the printer itself would have been viewed with breathless awe earlier in my own lifetime. Heck, I'm even impressed today.

But I wasn't thinking so much about a conspiracy as inconsideration and there own convenience at my expense.

I used the term "conspiracy" quite loosely.

I suspect it's more a form of incompetence--implementing a useful feature and doing so badly.

My HP Officejet L7680 will warn me of low cartridge levels long before a cartridge runs out, but it will not make the machine stop working. When the cartridge runs empty, the machine will stop printing. Period. Even in the middle of the page. So I just run it until the cartridge goes empty. And I can tell from the printing that the cartridge was on its last gasp.

I almost never use Windows (except under duress or as a favor to a friend), so I have no idea what whether it would shut down before it was dry under that other OS, nor have I ever tried to refill one of those, so I have no idea whether the counter needs reset.

See if you can reset that counter.

There's nothing on the printer's built-in website that suggests resetting it. And I didn't see anything on the cartridge itself when I had it last in hand.

But it's of little import because it's now beginning to show signs of running out of toner for real.