Printer - horizontal lines in color printing (deskjet)

My printer (HP 630c) will put horizontal lines in color printing. The
lines are various colors but mostly whitish depending on what color
it's supposed to be printing. The lines are evenly spaced, a few
millimeters apart.

I fixed the problem once by replacing the cartriage but then the
problem came back. I did not use the printer for a very long time,
like 3-5 months. Would that cause the problem to come about? I tried
shaking the cartriage but that did not help. This has happened twice.
I can only assume the problem is the cartriages. Text printing is
okay.

Will this happen just from not using the printer for a while?

I'm also using an HP 49 cart that says "for occasional printing" but
the first time I had the problem, it was with the regular HP 49 cart.

I tried calling HP which was useless. Thanks for any help if
possible.

Yes, the problem is the cartridge, and yes, the problem is
caused by not printing for a long time. Ink has dried up in
one or more of the print-head's ink channels and clogged them
up.

Try putting some warm distilled or filtered water on a paper
towel and resting the cartridge on the towel, print-head
down, for several minutes. This may moisten the dried-up ink
and get ink flowing again through the clogged channels.

If it doesn't work, you probably need to replace the
cartridge.

It's a good idea to print a sample page once a week or so to
ensure that the ink channels don't get clogged.

Jonathan Kamens wrote:

Yes, the problem is the cartridge, and yes, the problem is
caused by not printing for a long time. Ink has dried up in
one or more of the print-head's ink channels and clogged them
up.

Try putting some warm distilled or filtered water on a paper
towel and resting the cartridge on the towel, print-head
down, for several minutes. This may moisten the dried-up ink
and get ink flowing again through the clogged channels.

If it doesn't work, you probably need to replace the
cartridge.

It's a good idea to print a sample page once a week or so to
ensure that the ink channels don't get clogged.

Any idea why an HP 880c would print 3/4' bands of what looks like a
transparent lavender overlay every once in a while? Zero or one or two
bands per picture, but it doesn't seem to have ever done that on a
normal text print, even with text in different colors.. Same story with
old and new cartridge.

--
Cheers,
Bev
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Horn broken. Watch for finger.