# HP Deskjet 5740 Won't Print Color



## sidelsky18 (Dec 1, 2008)

So I haven't used my printer in a while because I was missing the power cable. I bought one off ebay today and plugged it in. 

The problem is that the printer won't print in color. There's color and black ink in there (the "estimated ink levels" shows this) and I've checked all the settings I know about to make sure it's not on greyscale.

The weird thing is that it is like "converting" all color into black and white. For example I printed two lines of a's, both in red color. One line was highlighted green and one line was highlighted black.

The line that was highlighted in green printed as an extremely faded line of black a's while the other line printed as a line of white a's with black highlighting... extremely odd...


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## pip22 (Aug 22, 2004)

By leaving the printer unused for some time, the ink inside the printer nozzles has dried up and caused a blockage, therefore preventing fresh ink from getting through. There should be a "cleaning cycle" option in the maintenance section of the HP printer driver. Use this several times. 

If the blockage is severe you may have to resort to the use of "cleaning cartridges" which contain solvent instead of ink, like these:
Cleaning Cartridges For HP Inkjet Printers

4 years ago I left my Epson printer unused for 10 days (forgot to ask my wife to use it while I was away). Tried everything to unblock it without success so I had to scrap it. I've now got a Canon printer which is much less prone to that problem but I still run a full-colour photo through it every week just to be sure (more frequently in summer months).

Hope you manage to unblock yours. In future you must not leave your printer unused for more than 2-4 days maximum, and make sure you use a bit of every colour to print something on a frequent basis.


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## masterjed (Jul 25, 2009)

Try to run a diagnostic test for the printer for do a hard reset but unplugging the power cord at the back while the printer is ON but it's usually the ink dries up and needs to be replaced for that senario.


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