I have an HP Deskjet I bought back in 2010 and it's been printing with white lines for a while now. I've already tried using the cleaning program from the control panel, but that didn't fix it. Does anyone know if it's possible to manually clean the printhead without damaging the printer?
Actually, with printers that old it's tricky to do manual cleaning without risking messing everything up - the printhead is fragile and if alcohol or water gets in the wrong place it gets really complicated. What works better is leaving the printer unplugged for a few hours (like 12-24 hours) because sometimes the inks dry out and a rest already helps, then try several cleaning cycles from the control panel in a row, with about 10 minutes between them. If that doesn't fix it, honestly it's worth more to just buy a new printer than try to repair it - those old HP Deskjet models from 2010 go for almost nothing secondhand, and a replacement printhead for that model is expensive and sometimes hard to find.
If the panel cleaning didn't work, try giving the printhead an ultrasonic bath - just leave it soaked in distilled water for a few minutes. Don't force anything or use alcohol, though, because that'll mess it up for sure. If that doesn't work either, I think it's worth just getting a new printer instead of risking breaking a part that costs almost as much as the whole machine.
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