I cannot get my HP Officejet 6500A Plus 710N to print in color. I have reinstalled the drivers..

Question

I cannot get my HP Officejet 6500A Plus 710N to print in color. I have reinstalled the drivers.  It used to print in color and just stopped.  I think it may be a settings issue?  I have checked the ink levels and they are all fine. When I print a diagnostic report on print qualify, the black prints well, but there is no color printing.

Answer 1

Okay, I had the same problem. It's most likely your printhead. All you have to due is clean it.
Note: I was sceptical of this approach but can fully attest to it's sound results as it restored my printer back to full functionality. Prior to this the printer only would print Black ink.
The print head is the carriage that holds all of your ink cartridges in the printer. On the 6500A it's super easy to remove. Opent your lid like your changing your ink cartridges. Remove all of your ink cartridges. Once they're out. There is a lever on the left side of the carrier that holdes your ink cartridges. Lift it up and the print head comes right out. Net take your print head to the sink and run it under hot water aiming towards the the four cirles were the ink flows into. Keep running it under the hot water until it is coming out clear. It's okay to run it under the bottom part too infact you'll need to inorder to get it completely rinsed out. Also don't touch the computer metal strips with your hand thought you can run water over them. Once your done rinsing use a blow dryer or a can of compressed air (thats what I did) to dry every thing out. I was able to get everything dry in about 5 minutes or so. Let it sit for a few minutes and check it again for water. I recommend moving it around to get full exposure to insure it is dry. Also if you use a hair dryer try to put it on a cold setting since there ar rubber grommets the surrount the inlet ink ports you wouldn't want to melt them with the hot air etc.. Like I said I used a can of compressed air.  It's important to use a quick method of drying as mentioned otherwise mineral particles could become deposited on the unit. This won't happen with the methods as I've described because the molecules won't be able to bond since your blowint them off. Oh yeah, you'll want to place a clean peice of paper down as your blowing because at first you'll end up with a few black jet marks as your blowing. Also don't wear your favorite white shirt lol. 
Okay once it's dry replace the print head carriage back in push the lever down install the ink cartridges. Close the lid then unplug the printer. Wait 5 seconds plug it back in then it will reboot and start its set up procedure kind of like whet you first bought the printer except you won't have to change any of your network or setup setting since they are saved in memory. Also be patient about the set up procedure it seemed very slow for me. Once it finishes you will be prompted to run the printer alignment process. Run the alignment process and you should be all good. If not at least you gave it a shot. If this doesn't work your going to have to pay $60 for a new printer head. Which is not that big of a deal but hey if you can fix it for free why not. If you do decide to buy a new printer head you might find deals online or ebay just make sure it's an Genuine HP print head. And lol use the Genuine HP ink cartridges. Finally make sure you print at least on colored page per month to make sure the ink doesn't clog up in the future.
Remember this suggestion is after you have run the HP clean ink cartridge procedure twice. Sometimes the clean procedure will correct the problem first. Also there is video I watched on YouTube about this just search for "Clean HP 6500 print head. Hope that helps
Once it's all dry just reinstall the printer head carriage