A UK care home is impacted by HP’s latest firmware actions affecting HP 903xl and 953xl cartridges in the United Kingdom market.
Richard Pateman of UK based World of Inks Ltd reports again that customers are experiencing problems when installing remanufactured cartridges and the cartridges will not work again until new chips are available.
Commenting that HP “strikes again” Pateman reports that the latest firmware update dated 14/15 July that the following updates are now locking out v9 chips installed on non-OEM cartridges:
- 903XL – MCP2CN2025AR
- 953XL – ELISXLP1N003.2024A.00
Commenting on the HP action, Pateman said: “During lockdown, luckily I was open, a care home rang me to say they have put a set of inks in their printer, they were desperate to print and had the message damaged cartridge and to replace.
“(953xl printer) They had a few spare sets which I told them; they must contact the seller as they will no longer work due to the update.
“They did not buy the inks from me, they were buying from Amazon, but were not given any sheets or information about turning off this update (I give a sheet to every sale on 903 and 953xl inks).
“This is also something every seller should be doing. Educating customers to turn off and to explain about firmware updates.
“Luckily, I had one set in stock of the originals which they came and collected which got them out of trouble.”
If the printer is set to automatic update the updates in question allow the installed cartridges to continue to work until they are empty. When installing replacement cartridges, they fail to work.
HP carried out a similar firmware update at the height of the pandemic in Europe on the 17 March 2020 when the following updates locked out v8 chips installed on non-OEM cartridges:
- 903XL Printers = MCP2CN2006BR
- 953XL Printers = ELLISXLP1N003.2007A.00
Commenting further Pateman said: ”Also with the shortage of HP items in the market at the moment, these updates cause even more stress to the consumer when they do, I cannot believe they did a update in lockdown (March 2020) and then again in July 2020.”
To check your current firmware status, print a status page from the LCD screen menu, this can be found in reports. this will have the firmware version on it.
To turn off automatic firmware updates:
- Click “Setup” on printer screen (this looks like a cog or wheel)
- Click on “Printer Maintenance”
- Click on “Update the Printer”
- Click on “Printer Update Options”
- Click on “Do Not Check”
You then need to select “No” on the question that pops up.
If you clicked yes on the last message, it would discard the change.
We will publish more details on the upgrade as we receive them.
Are you affected by this firmware upgrade? If so let us know. You can connect with us by email at news@therecycler.com.
