HP Color Laser Jet 3600n – Calibration Fix
(UPDATE: I’ve been told this fix also works for the HP LJ 3600s)
As luck would have it, last week all my toner cartridges ran out at the exact same time. You know exactly how wonderful this is when these things run about $150 each at Staples. (I use a local place and get refills for about $120). So I ordered all four colors (you can do the math cost wise).
Well the black was first to go and when we replaced it the printer restarted and wouldn’t exit startup calibration.
The printer kept running and running so we turned it off hoping that the next morning when we turned it on everything would be fixed – no such luck.
First I went online and looked for answers. One answer was to take the whole thing apart and clean the scanner lenses. Well after taking half the printer apart, I decided that wasn’t a great idea. Fortunately I was able to get everything back together and everything still worked – even the continuous calibrating issue.
I tried a few other things I found online, and after some experimentation, it looks like I fixed the issue completely. It’s only been a couple of days but I can completely turn off the printer and power it back on and everything is working as it should.
It looks like there were quite a few other folks who had similar problems.
Here’s what I did and some pictures I took so you can easily (hopefully) perform the same operation:
HP 3600n Instrument Cluster
- Cycle power switch off then on.
- Immediately as the printer powers on and the memory is initializing on the display screen (“HP 3600n Memory Initialization”), press and hold the “Down” Arrow until all three status lights are lit and you see two rows of asterisks (*) – see picture “HP 3600n Maintenance Mode”.
- Press the “Up” Arrow once.
- Press the “Menu” button once. This gets you into the maintenance screen and you will see “NVRAM INIT” on the Display Screen
- Press the “Down” Arrow once until “Skip Calibration” shows.
- Press the “Check Mark” Button once. A line of asterisks (*) will display under the words “Skip Calibration”. The printer will then finish initializing on it’s own at that point without calibrating.
HP 3600n Memory Initialization
HP 3600n Maintenance Mode
At this point you should be able to use your printer like normal but you may experience some pretty bad print quality.
Consequently you DO need to perform a calibration.
Here’s how to perform a “Quick Calibration.”
Once the printer has finished initializing and is sitting in a ready state, perform the following:
- Press the “Check Mark” Button once.
- Press the “Down” Arrow button 2 times until you see “Configure Device.”
- Press the “Check Mark” Button once.
- Press the “Down” Arrow button 1 time until you see “Print Quality.”
- Press the “Check Mark” Button once.
- Press the “Down” Arrow button 5 times until you see “Quick Calibrate Now”
- Press the “Check Mark” Button once. The printer will now perform a “Quick Calibration.”
If everything goes well, you should get about a minute or so of calibration and then the printer should return to the ready state.
UPDATE: If things are still not printing well, you may want to try a Full Calibration. This is accomplished the same way as a Quick Calibration. The only change is as follows:
Step 6. Press the “Down” Arrow button 6 times until you see “Full Calibrate Now”
A Full Calibration should take about 2 Minutes Only.
Here are some other notes:
- In the end, I replaced all the toner cartridges.
- Replacing all the toner cartridges didn’t fix the constant calibration problem. Only after I performed the “Skip Calibration” process would the printer stop calibrating.
- I highly recommend NOT trying to take apart your printer. There’s a good chance you will break something and you will really be stuck with a broken printer. I was an electronics technician in the Navy for 6 years and I realized after taking my printer apart that it was a huge mistake!
My honest opinion, it was replacing all the toner cartridges and performing the two procedures above that returned my printer to full “normal” high quality printing operations.
However, if you run into this problem, I would try these procedures before buying more toner cartridges. As I said before, those things are expensive. You may in the end have to buy a new printer if these procedures don’t work and you don’t want to add insult to injury by having 4 brand new but opened toner cartridges sitting in your office.
Finally, please feel free to comment below if you discover anything that could help someone else. By the way, I’m NOT some sort of Printer/IT guy. If you have questions I can try to help but there’s probably not much I can do other than recommend the steps above. But you can always ask and I can always say I don’t know!
I hope this helps…
… If it did help A LOT…
… If it did save your day…
… If it did save you a boat load of money!
Please feel free to make a donation because, as we all know, NOTHING IS FREE!
Best regards,
Mike
P.S. I’d love to see your comments below if this indeed helped fix your problem!
This worked perfectly! The print quality was not an issue so I did not mess around with the quick calibration.
Thank you so much for your advice.
Our work printer had come up with the change magenta cartridge alert and as I have done many before I changed the cartridge. The printer then started to callibrate continuously and no matter what I did it wouldn’t stop.
After a few frustrating hours i found your solution and now have a printer thats going like a dream.
Thanks for that – worked a treat. I had just spent 200 on replacing parts when the calibration started and didnt’ end. So I too would have been a bit peeved if I then had to buy a new printer.
Thanks again
Thanks Mike. I works (2/4/2011)
I had a customer with this problem and the solution provided here is a great workaround but what actually ended up fixing the problem was pulling out the packing strips from two recently replaced toner cartridges.
Leaving the packing strips in would definitely lead to problems!
Thank you sooooo much! This has worked my nerve for two whole days, and now I don’t have the problem! Thank you so much!
Your method got me printing again, but, it is printing ONLY Cyan and black. In fact the entire page is covered in Cyan. I tried the quick calibration and now doing a full calibration. It’s stuck on full calibration again. Darn…. Thanks anyway, looks like I have another issue.
Hey Paul, Did you start getting the “stuck in calibration” after replacing one or more of the cartridges. I know mine started after replacing the black cartridge. Just a thought, but I would try removing a cartridge at a time and then try the entire procedure again. I have no idea if this will work and it may take some messing around with the settings in order to bypass one or more of the cartridges. Or you might want to try replacing the new cartridges with an older one (I know I have a bunch old cartridges laying around). Let me know if this is of any help. – Mike
Thanks for the tips Mike – I was just going to write back to say that I got mine fixed. I had just replaced the Cyan cartridge when the printer went into the never ending calibration mode. I went through the steps above and got it to print, but it printed in ALL Cyan and black. I replaced the Cyan with yet another Cyan and the calibration process started all over again, never ending. Then I put back the original Cyan, went through the process above, doing the quick calibration, and it was working as good as it was before I replaced the cyan cartridge originally (which wasn’t great). Then I printed four rectangles, one of each of the cartridge colors, cyan, yellow, magenta, and black. I noticed that not only was the cyan light but so was the YELLOW! I replaced the yellow cartridge AND put one of the Cyan cartridges back in and it finished the calibration completely. Works great now. Without the process above I may never have figured this out. Thanks again!!
PS – I two am a computer tech…
Hey Paul, I’m glad it worked out. As you indicated, I think this problem becomes worse (or appears worse) when multiple cartridges start running out at the same time. Thanks for your input – Mike
I do the first two steps but nothing happens when I press the up arrow once. or when I press the Menu button.
I don’t get the Maintenance screen???
Press the up arrow once.
4.Press the Menu button once. This gets you into the maintenance screen and you will see “NVRAM INIT” on the Display Screen
Hi Kelly,
In step 2, are you getting all 3 “Status Lights” to come on along with the 2 full rows of asterisks as seen in the 3rd picture captioned “HP 3600n Maintenance Mode”?
Remember, as soon as you cycle the power off and then on, you have to press and hold the down arrow. If I remember correctly, this has to be done immediately!
Mike
Hi MIke. I did the same what you mentioned to solve this issue. But I got the printout in bad quality. I restarted the printer, again it is calibrating? can you help me to solve the problem. My printer is HP Laser Jet color 3600n and all the cartridges are new and original bought in HP showroom
Thanks
Hi Raja. I ran into the same situation with my printer. After I performed the first part (stopping the constant calibration problem), my print quality was horrible – everything was coming out red. I tried messing around with the color levels manually but it didn’t help at all.
That’s when I ran the “Quick Calibration” on the menu screen.
Most likely you are going to have to run the entire procedure again to stop the constant calibration. Then continue onto the second part of performing the “Quick Calibration” – 7 steps.
Once done, print a page off and see how everything looks. You should be good to go at this point and then you can turn the printer on and off as needed.
Let us know if this helps.
- Mike
Mike,
Your tip worked perfectly. I’ve broken the endless calibration cycle. However, my color printouts all have an ugly yellowish tinge, even after running the quick calibration. All my cartridges are new and HP. Any ideas? Many thanks
Ben
Hey Ben,
My first thought would be to perform a “Full Calibration.” It’s the same process as performing the “Quick Calibrate Now” but all you have to do his hit the Down Arrow button 6 times instead of 5 times (Step #6).
If that still doesn’t work, I would slap an old yellow cartridge in and perform the calibration process again. The printer may not allow you to do this since we would assume the old toner cartridge is empty. There is an override in the menu. So open the Menu; Configure Device; System Setup; Replace Supplies (down arrow 9 times); Override at Out. I’m guessing this will allow the printer to function even if a toner cartridge is empty. I would then put the new yellow toner back in and perform the calibration. Hopefully this “un-stucks” the printer.
If no luck, there is a “Restore Factory Settings” option: Menu; Configure Device; Resets; Restore Factory Resets. After performing this, I would run a calibration again.
Finally, you may have a bad yellow toner cartridge. The only way to find out is to go buy another. Either you will be printing beautifully or you won’t. However, we all know this is an expensive test to run.
However, I suspect the problem has more to do with calibration than with a faulty toner cartridge.
Let me know how this works out.
Thanks,
Mike
.. it’s working perfectly,
you’ve save my day of this anoyin’ printer…
after a year passed with calibrating problem … just needs a minute to fix…
thank you very much…
Hello Mike . Thanks for your tip. Now i can use this printer. But perhaps someone can help me again, I have a misalignent with cyan color (near 1mm).
Hi Tom, Did you get the alignment fixed? Did you try the calibration?
Thanks,
Mike
Mike – Thanks SO MUCH for the tip. I had all 4 cartidges running out near the same time. Following your procedure fixed everything.
On two prior occassions, I had endless calibration when changing just one cartridge. Each time I bought a 2nd new cartidge to test and still had problems. What actually “fixed” things those times (after several on/off and in/out w/the cartidges) was printing a document, which seemed to “jolt” the printer out of calibration (however, the first several prints I sent during calibration didn’t print…it’s still a mystery why it eventually started working those prior times).
Mike,
You saved the day! Spent a frustrating evening trying to fix this problem, googled some solutions and slogged through the HP website to no avail. Next morning, when I’d all but given up, I found your solution. I am a techno-phobe of the first order, but your instructions were SO clear and the photos helped too. Thanks so much–I thought I was going to have to replace the beast!
Thax mr mike for this helping stuff, it really helped me
Awesome! Your advice worked & I had almost ordered a used replacement printer (had just ordered cartridges)!!!! THANKS!
Mike,
Ditto Rhonda’s comments above. Spent some time fishing around for some reasonable idea’s to the 54.17 print error code I was getting. Tried all types of cleaning to no avail. Found your Calibration Fix and it worked flawlessly. Quick calibration also worked and printing is as good as it has ever been.
U Da’ Man…. Thanks again Mike and my wife thanks you twice!!
Hi Dennis – Glad I could help.
Mike,
You are wonderful! Thank you for your practical, easy to follow steps & visuals.
Situation was: I’ve been printing stuff off an on for several hours on my 3600n printer and I decided to cancel a print job, like I usually do. And when it just stopped printing my requests, I did a configuration print out. It said I had a “LAN Errof – Loss of Carrier.” Well after 45 min of googling and feeling quite overwhelmed & intimidated… I told myself to look one more time on google to see if anyone would talk “plain language” and actually be helpful instead of impressed with their own techy malarchy. Eureka! I found your information. I found I would email you if you saved the day & you did…so I am! I decided to take the path of least resistance & replace the yellow cartridge. Note; it was saying it was low…like the printer usually states in such a status. When I replaced the cartridge I caliberated for quite some time. If I hadn’t read your information I think I would have started punching some of the printer buttons out of exasperation…but, I kept my hands off. And… Yeah…it stopped calibrating and I decided to test it on printing out the instructions you had provided… and life is A-Okay now. Thank you for being so kind and actually taking pictures, writing superb instructions!! I am going to keep your site under my Favorites! Thanks so much Mike!!
Well… grrr.. it printed once great… now… when I print.. just the “Ready” light is on and it doesn’t print. I went through your steps on initializing and the Red, “Attention” light went on. So…now I’m trying to figure out what that means. I do use my printer a lot and it has been making a lot of shriek noises after I’ve been printing for 15 minutes. It may be telling me it’s just too tired…. ?? I think I’m going to call it a night… I’ll check tomorrow to see if you had a chance to reply… and if it works tomorrow, I’ll let you know. Thanks Mike, Bonnie
Hey Bonnie, it sounds like you are using your printer quite a bit and there’s no amount of setting resets we could do in order to fix noises or just a worn out printer.
Although I use my printer a fair amount, I don’t think I’ve ever printed for 15 minutes straight. My guess is that your printer is about to give up the ghost and it might be time to get a more robust printer considering your use.
I went to the HP website for the 3600n and the recommended number of pages is 1,000 to 3,000 per month (that’s 2 to 6 reams of paper). 15 minutes of printing is about 255 pages. That’s approximately 9 to 26% of your recommended number of monthly pages!
I’ve looked into getting a multipurpose high volume printer and copier for my office but I just don’t have enough volume to justify the lease. You may be close to that point. The leases on these things include service and toner if I remember correctly. It might be worth investigating and it might even save you money and time when you consider your HP toner costs and print time.
Hope this helps,
Mike
Hey Mike,
thanks so much for all this information, it saved us 400€. Better than any HP support homepage!!
Dankeschön from Germany!
Anja
ok, the printer does it all over again. starts calibrating for ever each time I turn it on. then I go through the whole procedure again (skip calibration) and it stops. But the printing quality was always good. Do you have any idea what to do?
thx so much,
Anja
Hi Anja,
Did you perform the “quick calibration” steps above? That’s the second set of 7 steps.
My suspicion is that the reason why the printer starts malfunctioning like this in the first place is because one of the printer cartridges does require calibration – even if it appears that the print quality is good. But, for some strange reason, the printer gets stuck in this constant calibration loop.
Also, if you just swapped out a printer cartridge, there could be a possibility that the new toner cartridge is bad. Try throwing in an old cartridge and running the whole procedure again including the “quick calibration.” The printer may not let you do this since the toner cartridge is already empty – but it’s worth a try. There is also a setting in the menu to bypass the empty toner cartridge error which basically will allow you print with no toner in the cartridges. If you’re having no luck and need to know how to bypass the empty cartridge warning, let me know and I’ll go figure out the step-by-step procedure.
Let us know what happens.
Your friend,
Mike
Hey Mike,
sorry that I’m answering just now but I didn’t have any old cartridges to try out what happens after exchanging the cartridges. I did quick each and every time, then sometimes full calibration, then I bypassed the empty toner cartidge error thing and reactivated it again… And now – I don’t know why – the printer runs correctly. I guess it’s because I did the full calibration thing a few times and at some point the printer stopped this never ending calibration procedure.
Thank you so much , it really helped us a lot!!
Anja
Hi Anja,
I’m glad your perseverance paid off and it eventually worked out.
Have a great day!
Mike
Thanks again, have a nice day!
Thanks mike, I just had one variation to do on mine, that was to hold down both arrow keys on start up, then the 2 rows of stars appeared, i pressed the menu button once , this brought up the initvram and then i stopped the calibration.
Best Regards to all fellow sufferers!
Alan
Thanks for your input Alan. I’m wondering if you have a different model. It may be useful to others who encounter the same thing.
Thanks Mr Mike!
it worked but when i switch off and restart the printer , it again hangs to calibrating…
will I always use to the same thing to work?
Bonny
Hi Bonny. The calibration is the problem. Getting past the constantly calibrating problem is only part of the fix. Make sure you perform a full calibration. If you still have problems, you might actually have a bad toner cartridge.
Mike – Genious – HP online help was usless!
Mike, I’ve done about 2 hours of research on-line, until I came upon your 2 minute solution. I can now print! Thank you……
Although I can print, the underlying problem is still there. I feel that the sensors need cleaning, since only half of the page prints cyan. Do you know how, or where I can find instructions on how to do that?
Thanks again…..
Hey Steve,
Make sure you get a good calibration once you get past the constant calibration loop. That’s the second part of the process. When I went through my problem, the magenta was really screwed up.
If you have an old cyan cartridge, I would try putting that back in and performing the whole sequence. There is a way to bypass the low toner warning on the cartridges in order to get them to print a few more pages.
I highly suggest you not try taking this beast apart. Trust me, the sensors are in no way accessible.
I have a document destruction business so things are pretty dusty around here. In this environment, if it ever would be required, my sensors should need cleaning. But I haven’t had a problem since I performed this procedure.
Let us know how it works out.
Thanks,
Mike
Hey Mike. I found your solution some time ago and it worked like charm, but never got to thank you
Anyway, today the printer started calibrating again. I followed the same steps but guess what: I can’t get in the nvram menu. I’ve done it a few times in the past, but now nothing. I managed to get in a ‘cold reset’ menu somehow, but nowhere the ‘skip calibration’ part. I press up and menu and nothing happens for a few secs until I can start again.
What would be your suggestion? New cartridges?
Me again. I solved the problem, I wasn’t doing the process correctly. Silly me
Thanks again for the solution, you’ve saved me!
Mike,
Thanks a lot for your help. Your tip really stopped the printer from doing a constant Calibration. I just made myself a reminder to do a calibration on it once a month.
Thanks.
Thank you so much! I’m preparing for a digital photography camp and MUST have my printer working. You save me. Thanks for taking the time to post these very clear directions.
Mike, dear !
after I left the 3600n to cool down for a week or so, I came back, and looked for help on internet,; finding this page it was a revelation for me: first I took couple of chances, realized the yellow is low, too. I replaced it and went on your disciples steps till I was able to print a yellowish-black copy of these instructions.Then I did print your great instructions for the second time and the printed copy came out perfect.Shouldn’t I pray for you, from now on !?
Yes, you’ll be in my prayers all the times.
thanks ! fr. Ted
Hi Fr. Ted,
Lord knows I need all the prayers I can get… So I gladly accept!
Your friend,
Mike
A friend of ours from New Zealand said that this process worked for his HP LJ 3600s.
Mike,
I was thrilled to find your instructions to this printer delimna – however, I cannot restore my print quality — all the black print (black was the cartridge replacement that started this madness) is pale to the point of ilegibility!?! I have completed the additional steps said to address this problem; and after reading all of the comments above, also went back through everything, and selected “Full Calibration” — but all that did was restart the marp o.O
This was a refurbished cartridge, but that’s what we have run in this printer, for years, without any sort of problem — until today *which, as is the way of the wacky world, is the day before a major deadline*. Is there ANY other wisdom you can shed on this puzzling situation?
With many thanks!
– penny
Hi Penny,
I would try performing a “Full Calibration.” This is performed exactly the same as a quick calibration, but in step 6, press the down arrow one more time (total of 6 times) and press the “Check Mark” button when you see “Full Calibrate Now”.
I’m going to put together a checklist for overriding the automatic toner cartridge “out” function for testing if you have a bad toner cartridge. It also can be used for getting that last little bit out of your toner cartridges.
Let us know how the Full Calibration works.
Thanks,
Mike
Alas, I had already tried advancing to the Full Cal – but it did the same thing it did upon changing the cartridge: it just KEPT ON Calibrating :-\
I just got back from town (picked up a new HP cartridge at Staples) and *presto!* the printer works like a dream. I will difinitely keep up with this thread, in case this happens again.
Thanks for the quick response — I was SO afraid of not being ready for tomorrow, I had to take the plunge and get a new one. I suppose I was “due” for a bum cartridge — the timing just really stunk
Thanks, again!
– penny
Penny…. If you’re up for it, I would be interested to see what happens if you put the bad toner cartridge back in. If you get the calibrating issue again, then hopefully you can get a refund. If it works, it’s a bummer that you had to buy a new cartridge, but at least you won’t have to go through the hassle of getting a refund.
Thanks,
Mike
…okay, took a break in the endless printing to try the 1st cartridge of the day, again — still went into Calibrating loop (?) Ran through the ‘fixes’ again, and was able to cease the Calibrating, but the print quality was, again, AWFUL.
I also re-read the comments preceeding my saga; and one struck me as notable — I wonder if it is possible that a portion of the ‘strip’ that you pull out before inserting the cartridge is still in there (?) This only came to me, because when I installed the new, new cartridge this afternoon, it seemed like the protective strip was noticeably LONGER than what came out of the cartridge from earlier in the day
It seems like all of this has resulted in more questions than answers; but I SO appreciate your help and follow up on this! I have bookmarked your site
All the best!
– penny
*the weary printer – ha!*
Hey Penny,
A portion of the protective strip remaining in the cartridge would certainly be a problem! And in fact, that strip is very long.
Hopefully you got the “new, new” cartridge working.
Thanks for your contribution,
Mike
I am bad with computer and its devices. I never format a computer by myself. Not even to change the power supply or installing the ram or hard disk myself. Everything is done by my technician and I even asked them to install every single thing that I need before hand it to me. This is also the first time that I am trying to learn how to change the laser printer cartridges for my new printer by myself. However, I am happy that I am still able to learn through the internet. After all, it is not as difficult as I though it would be. I enjoy reading your post and please continue to post. Thanks a lot.
Greetings everybody,
I don’t have the stuck-on-calibiration problem. Yet I’m suffering from a more annoying one.
Every now and then and as the printer is printing in HIGH QUALITY…all of a sudden colors start to break down in images into a full shade of red covering almost all the image area.
MOst surprisingly, the problem MAY vanish in a day or two and appear once again some other time. Changing the color profile helped once but never after…
Installed…uninstalled the driver…the same outcome. The printer is shared over the network but oftenly printed on by a workgroup computer.
Any help?
I use my HP over a small network and we get consistent printing on all computers.
My only suggestion would be to reset the printer to its factory default and then try to perform a quick calibration (second part of the above procedure).
I’ve rarely found that messing with drivers will help with print quality or much of anything other than getting your computer to talk (nicely) with the printer. Once they are talking, it’s usually up to the printer to make nice and give quality output
Let us know how it works out.
Mike
Thanx mike.
I made a factory reset..calibration took much longer (didn’t wnat to interrupt) only to tell me that I need a black cartridge. I’ll check out after I unstall the new one
Thanks for the fix Mike!
You mentioned “As luck would have it, last week all my toner cartridges ran out at the exact same time.”
I found a fix for this on another website. If you print more often in Black & White only with occasional Color use, you can change the Print Mode to “Mostly Black”.
On my printer, HP Color LaserJet 3600n, this option can be found by pressing Menu, Configure Device, System Setup, Color/Black Mix, Mostly Black Pages.
Hope this helps!
Thanks so much for this.Your fix works, Genius!
Hi Mike,
Thnak you so much. Your instruction abov help me to solve the problem to istall my new tonners.
Thank again.
Tyty
Thank you very much.. You save my day…
Your tip works perpectly to me.
worked like a charm! you rule!
nice aport, but my printer says that its full of paper, what do y should do
big thaink,s