Old Officejet R40- cartridges suddenly screwy

Archived from groups: comp.sys.hp.hardware (More info?)

I've had the R40 for about 5 years. Last night it worked perfectly.
Today I got the error message to check the color cartridge, which was
almost new. At least it began to work when I swapped out the color
cartridge for another new one.

But now the NEW black cartridge is printing like an old cartridge,
with white horizontal gaps in the print page every 1/16 of an inch,
and very faint print. Doing a proper alignment does not fix it.

I suspect there is something systemic wrong, rather that it just being
a cartridge problem.

Any experience here?

Thanks,
Alfonso, in Chicago