Good afternoon. Got a C5280 HP printer and have installed a brand new tri-colour cartridge (351xl) and the printer keeps telling me to refer to printer documentation !!! have reinstalled and uninstalled cartridge and cleaned electrical heads but to no avail !!! wot do i do now ?

Have you removed the shipping tape from the print cartridge? It covers the print head on the cartridge to protect them so they won't leak ink.

Are the cartridges genuine new hp, or are they compatibles, or refills? If not genuine hp, get some and see if that solves your problem.

Your printer uses the following cartridges:

HP 74 - Black ink
HP 75 - Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow ink
HP 99 - Photo Black, Light Cyan, and Light Magenta

You need Photo Black, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Light Cyan, and Light Magenta to print photos. To accomplish this you install the HP 99 photo cartridge where your HP 74 black cartridge usually goes and you keep the HP 75 color cartridge where it's at. I don't know why your printer told you to remove both cartridges, then reinstall the HP 75 color cartridge.

Try to unplug the printer from the outlet and the computer, wait for 5-10 min. Then plug only the ac cord back to the wall, turn printer on and see what happens. If it seems ok, then plug back into your computer. Also there is usually a process in the printer program that lets tell the printer it has new carts installed.

You must replace both with new GENUINE HP ink cartridges at the same time or alignment will fail.

This is how HP makes their money.

Are the cartrideges real HP ones or an off brand? If a substitute , take them back for a refund and get the real thing. 
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/product?product=60259&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en〈=en&cc=us

# Hold the cartridge upside down, with the bar-code label facing you and take a damp paper towel.
# Use the towel to wipe the printhead of the cartridge on the bottom (where the ink comes out). Wipe the printhead horizontally in one direction only (left to right).
# Continue doing this until it looks clean.
# Then dab the cartridge on the towel to make sure the ink is flowing.
# Next, look inside the printer and locate the carrier that holds ink cartridges. Caution: Make sure the cartridges are not installed at this point.
1. Look for a shiny piece of metal underneath the contacts at the back of the carrier.
2. Take a damp cotton swab (use water only!) and wipe along the bottom of the shiny metal piece. Note: You may need more than one swab.
# Reinstall the cartridges, making sure you snap them correctly into the printer.
then try to print if the alignment fails then you need to change the cart in the
printer if its original hp new cart then get replaced .....

Good luck..

I had the same problem after changing the black cartridge. After trying everything i found online to fix this fault and replacing the new black cartridge again, i replaced the tricolour cartridge even that it had a quarter ink left! This solved the problem, I think the colour was abit weak for the printer to check alignment.
Try it, it worked for me and good luck

Hi,
You need to calibrate your cartridges. To adjust color's in setup cartridges.
It' in printers and faxes.
good luck

Its the cartridges...... you will have to get more or new ones. I changed mine after a week of fiddling around - and printer worked perfectly. Wish the error message had been specific, then I would not have wasted all my time. The cartridges that didnt work were brand new HP 350 and 351 cartridges - straight from the packets, but the printer "didnt like them"..... A waste of money but Im going to try and put them back into machine tomrrow and see if I can fool it!!!