Just wanted to share with everyone that HP have region coded their ink cartridges. Just tried to put in my first cartridge bought over here in Oz and it doesn't like it. The printer is out of warranty so at first tech support were going to charge to "regionalize"! the printer, but now they're going to do it as a warranty call on the ink cartridges themselves!

I had to get them to call back tomorrow though because what I thought would be a quick call while my 3 year old was happy playing had already got to 30 mins and they were just starting to ask me to find a USB cable to connect the printer directly.

it'll all be fine tomorrow.

Barstewards.... this is the first time I heard about this.

Right I'll be exploring this one inside out.

Someone will surely come up with a fix.

What a bunch of Barstewards. I will make a note to myself never to buy an HP product again.

Tastes good on bacon sarnies though.

i had this problem a while ago. Tried to buy the equivalent for my hp printer bought in england. i ended up ordering my cartridges online from www.r4card.com.au and they were delivered from europe somewhere within about 7 days...also worked out - including postage - pretty much the same price as the ones i tried to buy locally.

I will get round to getting my printer decoded but don't fancy an hour long phone call to get it sorted!

I checked it out, Epsom do it as well

There will be a hack somewhere though

When they first "chipped " the cartridges and increased the price (surprise ) I switched to http://calidad.com.au/FindProdStep1.asp?MAN=HP
never had any problem but have since switched to laser as it more price competitive.
As ozzieeagle says : Barstewards....

I'm going to try and write down the codes that they give me tomorrow and post them and the method somewhere tomorrow for the HP Photosmart C4380, but I'm sure that the codes are specific to each region and for each printer.

Thankfully they're not charging me and if they ring me tomorrow they'll be paying for the call too. I also read somewhere else that you can only change the region 3 times, so for frequent movers that online cartridge ordering is definitely the way to go.

I can't believe when I rang and asked them if there was some kind of region coding, I thought I was just being mad and that they would say just give the cartridges a clean or something!

That would be useful. I also have two HP printers and one is a photosmart.

I may have to stock up on cartrtidges before we go.

Love it LOL.

Jo

Source please.

.

Can you get your original cartridges refilled in OZ???
Seems like a way round it.

Not for me they haven't. My UK HP printer works perfectly and so do the Aussie bought ink cartridges.

You must have a really old one then.

It appears that each machine generates a separate code, so using someone elses code will probably not work. However, this was back in 2007-08, so things may have change. (to make it even harder !)