Hey all. I have a lexmark Z22 printer that has not been used in several months. When it was disconnected it had some ink left(not sure how much). Now when I try and print it prints blank pages. It does all the regular printing noises. I have tried another driver, and still does not work. Both times I definitly had the right driver. So I am thinking that possibly the ink is either empty or dried out. Any thoughts? David

Have you tried Print Head cleaning ?? Start, Printers and Faxes, Right click Printer icon, then Properties, then Utilities tab, click Head Cleaning. Ink in the Print Head dries up when printer is not used for a long time. Head Cleaning consumes alot of ink. No paper needs to be in the printer to do this.

I never like to intrude into someone's post, but it sounds like Chuck 2 is knowledgable with printing topics, and I always wanted to ask this question somewhere but didn't know where to ask it. Chuck 2, do you happen to know about a Canon photo printer I-960? I just bought this photo printer....works flawlessly, but I print photos quite infrequently. Would you happen to know if those inks tend to dry up, similar to the Lexmark that you mentioned above? If I printed a photo, say once every two months, would the inks dry up from lack of use? Thanks very much for any info you could offer, and David, I hope you don't mind me asking this within your origional post; I just didn't know where to ask this question, and figured it would get deleted on the forum, for not pertaining to Windows XP. Many thanks!! ~Tommyo

The following is a summary of cleaning a Lexmark print cartridge with the references pertaining to ink refilling edited out. http://www.oddparts.com/ink/l12a1970.htm Lexmark Z22 Lexmark 17G0050 Black Cartridge Lexmark 16G0055 Black Cartridge To Clean the Printhead 1. Only clean the printhead if you get poor print quality or no print. 2. Follow the directions in the printer manual to run the cleaning routine. 3. If this doesn't work, take the cartridge to the nearest hot water faucet. * Turn on the hot water. Let it get hot. * Put only the printhead portion (where the ink comes out) under the hot water for 2 to 3 seconds * Dry off the cartridge using a soft tissue. * Re-insert the cartridge into the printer. * Run the normal cleaning routine a few times. * You may repeat this hot water routine a couple of times.