Epson 9800 runs head clean before printing every time

[mattlaudergallery]

<p>Hi,<br>

I posted a question a few days ago and I have narrowed down the problem.<br>

My Epson 9800 appears to be running a head clean every time a print job is sent to the printer. It runs the clean and prints that two row patch chart... cuts it off and then runs the print job. If I then send another job to print it will run another head clean.<br>

I have called Epson tech support here in Australia and they are yet to get back to me. Seeing it is a 2nd hand printer I dont think I will rank high on the priority list. Though they did give me a job reference number. :)<br>

Any advice on whats happening would be much appreciated.<br>

Thanks<br>

Matt</p>

[mattlaudergallery]

<p>Whats printing is the head clean conformation sheet. not sure if the head is actually clean, but I can only guess it is. Dosent appear to take long to do.</p>

[hjoseph7]

<p>How does the head clean confirmation sheet look ? Are there any missing parts or colors on the chart ?</p>

[mattlaudergallery]

<p>On some sections it looks like there are very faint white lines through the squares and then your have whole squares missing that make up a + shape in all four of the colour squares. But only on a few of the lines and looks like it was ment to do it ???? maybe.<br>

Then when I did another head clean and selected "Auto" for the conformation instead of "Print" it printed a much bigger test chart and then at the end it said, "Print Head Error".</p>

[hjoseph7]

<p>Not sure what operating system you are using but to access the Printer Preferences on Windows I go to the "Start" panel (if you have not created a short-cut on your desk top) then I click on DEVICES AND PRINTERS. A list of printers connected to your computer is the displayed. I Right click on the Epson Stylus Photo R2400( the printer I own) and then select Printer Preferences. When I click on Printer Preferences I get the "Epson Stylus R2400 Printer Preferences Page". I then click on the Maintenance tab. There are 6 functions: 1) Status Monitor 2)Auto Nozzle check and Clening© 3) Nozzle check 4) Head Cleaning 5) Print Head Alignment 6) Printer & Option information.<br />Now function 2 automatically does a head cleaning after a nozzle check, function 3 only performs a nozzle check, function 4 only performs a head cleaning.<br />Are you sure your printer is performing a nozzle check & head cleaning, function 2 ?<br />Or is it just performing a nozzle check, function 4.<br />Faint white bars through the colored squares, or missing colors means that your heads are clogged, or worse that the entire head is damaged. Not sure why this is happening automatically everytime you send a job to print though, how are your prints coming along ?</p>

<p> </p>

[markus maurer]

<p>Did you try to uninstall the printer driver and reinstall the newest driver from the Epson website after a reboot?</p>

[mattlaudergallery]

<p>Harry I have tried it on XP Home and also Snow Leopard on my iMac. The prints look ok... not colour managed as yet and the printer keeps on printing the file the wrong orientation to the preview.<br>

I have installed and reinstalled everything I possibly can.<br>

My next course of action is to call out a tech and ask them to bring a new print head.</p>