HP Laserjet 2600 or 2605 toner: “Replace supplies” is a lie


August 20th, 2009

I’ve had a Laserjet 2605dn for a few years. It’s been a pretty good printer, but I’d like to throw it in the bin. But first, if you will:

fraud, n.

1. A deception deliberately practiced in order to secure unfair or unlawful gain.
2. A piece of trickery; a trick.
3. a. One that defrauds; a cheat. b. One who assumes a false pose; an impostor.

It’s no secret that printer companies don’t make any money off the actual printers. The supplies (like toner) are where they make their millions.

When all three of my cyan, magenta, and yellow cartridges in my HP Laserjet 2605 ran out of toner simultaneously (i.e., on the same page), I was immediately suspicious. The printer’s LCD flashed “Replace Supplies” and refused to print another page (even grayscale!) unless I replaced all three cartridges, to the tune of about $300 CAD.

My suspicion was confirmed when I pulled the yellow cartridge and realized it was almost full. The printer ticks a counter every time a page is run through the printer, which has nothing to do with how much toner is actually consumed.

Thankfully, there is a printer setting that HP probably doesn’t want you to know about.

How to use ALL of the toner in your HP Laserjet 2605 or 2600

  1. On the printer itself, hit the big green checkmark button to access the menu.
  2. Select System Setup -> Print Quality -> Replace Supplies.
  3. There is likely an asterisk (*) beside “Stop at out”.
  4. Hit the > arrow once, and the display should read “Override out”.
  5. Press the checkmark to confirm that (the asterisk should now be beside “Override out”).
  6. Back out of the menu. The LCD should now display “Override in use”, meaning, you can now continue printing for as long as you actually have toner in the cartridges (and beyond, probably).

Thank you HP, for providing this “feature”, and for burying four levels into a completely non-obvious menu. I guess they had to call it “Print quality”, because “Not paying triple on already overpriced toner” wouldn’t fit on the LCD. Now we know how they turn a healthy profit on their oh-so-green cartridge recycling program. (“It’s free!”)

HP does describe this feature on their knowledge base. They also strongly recommend against using it, because it may cause “Color matching and other print quality defects related to the absent(sic) of a color.” Ha! Who would have thought. Oh, and–better yet–this feature voids the warranty on the toner you were about to throw out send to HP for recycling anyway.

Yes, printer companies have done this before, and yes, I’m still page flipping mad about it. If this article saves one poor soul the expense of $300 worth of toner cartridges, it’d make my day.

[Photo credit: jepoirrier (flickr)]

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Posted in Business, Technical Articles | 27 Comments »

27 Responses to “HP Laserjet 2600 or 2605 toner: “Replace supplies” is a lie”

  1. Daniel Goldin Says:
    September 11th, 2009 at 3:20 pm

    Thanks, Ryan! This worked great. Daniel

  2. pillsbury Says:
    September 12th, 2009 at 1:09 pm

    You are a hero to reveal this, which just saved me the $300 you mentioned

  3. Ryan Thompson Says:
    September 12th, 2009 at 5:33 pm

    @Daniel and pillsbury:

    Excellent. You’ve indeed both made my day.

    Cheers,
    - R

  4. Pyrolaser Says:
    September 25th, 2009 at 8:48 am

    It’s amazing how much HP and other companies like them are able to get away with ripping off consumers.
    Keep up the good work Ryan…

    Christian Emond

  5. HP 2605 Printer: How to Force Print or How to Override Replace Cartridge « Internet Marketing Blog with PaperStreet Web Design – Law Firm, Business & Professionals Says:
    September 28th, 2009 at 1:18 pm

    [...] Today, I had to force a print.  I needed the copy and did not have time to go to the store.  On an HP 2605 printer you cannot easily force something to print.  In fact, it takes five steps to override the “replace cartridge” message and get something to come out.  Luckily, I found steps on how to do this here. [...]

  6. Tuomas Toivonen Says:
    October 12th, 2009 at 1:35 pm

    Hey, thanks for the info. I had override already in use, but then managed to (duh!) restore the printer to factory settings. Spent a while trying to find the override again in the menus… and then Google brought me here. ;-)

  7. Aldo Says:
    October 13th, 2009 at 1:55 pm

    Thank you!

  8. Melissa Says:
    October 19th, 2009 at 9:02 am

    Fabulous! Thank you so much.

  9. Dave Says:
    October 28th, 2009 at 8:36 am

    Totally agree with what you say and it does waste a lot of expensive toner unless you know that this is common feature. It is in the manual (deep) and many of us don’t get to read that far – even through the index

  10. Kay Says:
    November 1st, 2009 at 3:22 pm

    Fantastic – $300 of unnecessary expenditure saved. Thank you for posting this!

  11. Ferdie Says:
    November 11th, 2009 at 11:04 pm

    Thank you for the advice. Several months ago I replaced my color cartridges when my printer said they needed replacement. It cost me a fortune and I thought it was too fishy and coincidental that they all were empty at the same time. It’s happened again but your suggestion just saved the day. I will print until I determine the print quality is bad enough to replace the cartridges — with remanufactured ones! Take a hike HP…

  12. Mati Says:
    November 26th, 2009 at 4:07 am

    ….one more day of yours made.
    I am so mad I am going to shout at HP support service peole now….

  13. David Says:
    November 27th, 2009 at 2:26 am

    I’ve driven my wife crazy with my complaining about this scam. I replaced my black cartridge prematurely because of this but when it came time to replace the three color cartridges, I said no way. Thank You.

  14. James Says:
    December 3rd, 2009 at 1:34 pm

    Love this thread. Haha HP, you’ve been found out!

  15. John Says:
    December 4th, 2009 at 8:07 am

    Thanks Very much – It’s 5 AM , Ia m printing invoices & it just stopped… Now I can continue my procedure. Even if it ruins the printer @ the cost of cartridges , I may as well buy a new one!

  16. Ryan Thompson Says:
    December 4th, 2009 at 9:11 am

    I’ve been reading all of these comments as they come in, and I’m sure glad that people have been able to find this thread. Thanks, everyone, for the comments.

  17. Lynn Says:
    December 4th, 2009 at 5:49 pm

    Ryan:
    I tried the override and the black toner now works, but the three color toners all have a red X. They actually have more toner left than the black originally.
    Any suggestions? Thanks

  18. Darren Says:
    December 5th, 2009 at 1:38 pm

    You are the man. Wish i could repay you in some way. Ink/Tonor sales are such a scam.

  19. agustin Says:
    January 9th, 2010 at 1:53 pm

    I am a little mexican editor trapped by big global companies in their commercial methods, now i know we are not alone, many many thanks

  20. Jon Says:
    January 24th, 2010 at 2:55 pm

    Not only this, but the web interface tells me that I’ve printed 50 pages using our new magenta toner and shows it has 6 pages remaining. The published life of the colour toners is something like 2000 sheets. No, we haven’t been using it to print photographs – just letters with small colour logos etc. Our colour printer has essentially become a black & white because we simply don’t trust what’s going on with these extortionate colour toners. Over £200 for a set, that works out at about £4 per page of text with a small area of colour. No way.

  21. Sean Says:
    February 3rd, 2010 at 6:41 pm

    Holy Crap! Thanks $247.99 + shipping and handeling, Ryan.

  22. James Allen Says:
    February 24th, 2010 at 8:00 am

    I need help asap, I have a HP4050 series(dinosaur-10 yrs.old), I have gone through the troubleshooting steps and still won’t print. Toner gauge is low but configuration seems OK. I get an error message from MWord “This document failed to print”.(duh) Can anyone help?

  23. Chris Says:
    March 3rd, 2010 at 3:35 pm

    I have a HP Color Laser Jet CP1215 and it was doing the same thing…here is how to override the printer. Open the HP Toolbox (located in your system try or in your programs menu on the Start Button). On the left side of the HP Toolbox there is a folder menu – click on ‘HP Color Laser Jet CP1215′ then ‘Device Settings’ then ‘System Setup’. Once clicked, several options appear in the main body of the toolbox. Change the ‘Cartridge Out Override’ from ‘Off’ to ‘On’ and click ‘Apply’ at the bottom of the screen. The printer should automatically accept this new setting as indicated by a steady black toner out light on the printer.

  24. Ryan Thompson Says:
    March 3rd, 2010 at 4:44 pm

    Great, thanks Chris!

  25. Alf Says:
    March 10th, 2010 at 12:20 am

    We ran out of black toner and supplies are not going to arrive anytime soon. Our color toners are still full though, so your troubleshooting steps are just what I needed. Thank you!

  26. Ana Says:
    March 11th, 2010 at 4:51 pm

    This info just saved my life!!! I was printing my wedding invitations and ran out of magenta toner but I only needed the black!!!!

    THANK YOU SO MUCH!

  27. Ryan Thompson Says:
    March 14th, 2010 at 6:55 pm

    Hi Ana,

    You’re welcome! Good luck with your wedding. Hopefully this was the biggest glitch you’ll face.