Alignment problems

I had a similar issue. The align cartridges kept coming up and would fail when I did the alignment page. It would print black / grey. I took out the color ink cartridge and it was covered in black ink. I just had to wipe it off and it would align the cartridges. The computer makes noise when the cartridges go back to their "dock". I think their is a problem with the mechanism that cleans the ink cartridges. Not sure if this can be replaced easily.

Here's the deal with the cartridge alignment page....the machine will spit out a series of black lines mixed with yellow ink and at the beginning of each of these lines is a "Green" check mark. The carriage moves back and forth over these lines and green check marks and reads them by use of what is called a "spot sensor" that resides on the right side of the carriage assembly. This is usually noticed by the blue ray of light that shines out of it. So if you are getting an alignment failure one of two things is happening....1)You've have got a bad cartridge (usually the color) and it is not laying down the right colors, specifically the green check mark or 2)You've got a bad spot sensor...even though it may still be shining the blue light, the sensor board can't process the information. Its an easy fix either way.

Inkworks

put the old color back in , if it works then you have a bad new color cartridge , micro chip is dead.