Customer Reviews

HP Business Inkjet 1200dtwn Printer

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I bought a 1200dtwn in January. My previous printer was an HP 990Cse that never gave me any trouble and still works beautifully. The only reason I got the 1200 was for the network capability. The 1200dtwn is a "sensitive" and complex machine. For several weeks I have had a problem where the Toolbox ink level display for 2 of the 4 inks shows as zero even though this is not possible. The other 2 inks show reasonable numbers of 74 and 91 percent. The HP support people had me upgrade the printer's firmware to a level that corrected a problem where the ink levels displayed as zero. This firmware upgrade did not solve my problem. In fact after installing the upgrade all 4 inks displayed zero percent ink and when I printed a test document I could hear it printing but nothing appeared on the paper. Fortunately I had come located a 5-step procedure to reset the printer. This is an absurdly complex secret ritual-type of procedure. After resetting the printer I was back to where I was before installing the firmware upgrade, with the Toolbox showing 0 percent for 2 of the inks. I think the firmware upgrade may have corrected the problem I had after an envelope jammed, inside the printer- where all the printer's indicator lights were lit (this condition is not documented) and the printer refused to do anything - it wouldn't even turn off.

Another problem is that characters are shifted up, a little too high, in a column near the center of the page. I haven't even begun hassling HP about this problem yet.

After presenting one problem to HP Support they came back with the procedure shown below. Keep in mind that there are 2 media trays, 4 ink cartridges, 4 printheads, and one duplexer. This is a small project that did not solve my problem anyway.

I am very sorry I bought this complex and incompletely debugged printer.

=====Start of Diagnostic Procedure=================================
"In order to troubleshoot this issue, I suggest that you remove all the user replaceable part (for example: ink cartridges, printheads, trays and duplexer). Unplug the power cord from the printer and clean the electrical contact of the printhead and the socket."

Refer to the section "Cleaning the printhead contacts or replacing the printheads" in the document at following URL for information to clean the electrical contacts: http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c00170880

Please follow the steps below after cleaning the electrical contacts of the printheads:

1. Reinstall the trays and the duplexer.
2. Reconnect the power cord and turn on the printer.
3. Reinstall the ink cartridges and then the printhead.
4. Ensure that printhead latch and all the top access covers are properly secured.
5. With the printer turned on, unplug the power cord.
6. Wait for few seconds and plug in the power cord.
7. Turn the printer on by pressing the Power button and check if the printer comes to ready state.
=====End of Diagnostic Procedure=================================

I had a HP970cxi, simply a great unit that printed photo lab quality pictures from a 1.5 meg camera, great graphic presentations on plain paper and printed business cards (Avery) effectively. I just tried out my new 1200dtwn and its printing quality is equal to the 970. It uses the same color technology, PhotoREt III, that was in the 970.
Setup was easy. Uses 4 ink cartridges and 4 printheads, easy installation. This printer is a bit larger, about 17 X 18 X 11 with 2nd tray, but is a good buy if you have the room in your home office.