MENGYAN Replacement for HP 950 951 (Black and Color, 2-Pack)

We have an HP Officejet Pro 8600 Best printer we have ever owned - Print, scan, copy and fax, but fax never used.This printer is likely 8 years old, and they don't make this model anymore. If they did, I would have purchased another one and called it a day.When printing, the printer stopped with a warning about a BAD PRINTHEAD. I took the printhead off (easy to do) removed all the ink cartridges and found a bunch of "gunky" ink around the printhead. I cleaned it with a little alchohal swab and it all worked weli - FOR 2 MORE DAYS. Then the the same error message. I then removed the Printhead, and cleaned it again and the printernow failed to print at all, with the same message.I then purchased the new Printhead, which was expensive ($119) but came with 4 HP ink cartridges. The cartridges seemed redudant, but perhaps a "bad cartridge" caused the fouled printhead. I installed the new printhead AND the 4 new cartridges and after the printer alogned itself, it then printed like a brand new printer. Very impressed. Delivery was a day ahead of promised date, install was easy and the printer is working perfectly! I give this a 5 out of 5 stars.

Conclusion: Replacement head worked. Replacement Red cartridge (came with kit) failed and made mess. I replaced it with old Red cartridge with older firmware that wasn't compatible. I didn't know this which screwed me up for a few hours. Used new cartridges with new firmware. (New supported ink cartridge is HP951XL Z10, which wasn't contained in older cartridges). Working fine now.And now for the rest of the story...Instruction 1A isn't quite clear. You must gently flip the lever on the right side of the print head to release the head. The directions show a curved arrow, but it wasn't clear to me. My print head lasted till 16033 copies. I went on YouTube and found a video on how to fix the head. I disassembled the head, cleaned all the contacts, including the hidden springs. Tried it and it failed. Disassembled it again and tried it again. No luck. This head was a little pricey, but I ordered it. I was worried that it wouldn't work. I installed the head and inserted the new cartridges. It recognized the new head! Amazing. Then the printer did the head alignment. It printed a page of black lines, but no red lines and it said that one of the new cartridges wasn't working right. So I followed the on screen instructions that said to flip the lever up and down (to the right of the head), then reseated all of the cartridges, which I did. It ran the head alignment again, which worked. Black and red lines printed out and the Before And After Bird Picture printed out. Looks good. DO A "SETUP, TOOLS, DISPLAY ESTIMATED INK LEVEL" AND PRINT THE REPORT. MAKE SURE EVERY LINE UNDER SUPPORTED INK CARTRIDGES HAS THE SAME 4 LINES INCLUDING HP 951XL Z10. APPARENTLY OLDER CARTRIDGES DON'T HAVE THAT, AND WON'T WORK WITH THE NEW CARTRIGES, WHICH CAUSED THE FOLLOWING SCENARIO. I USED THE SETUP CARTRIDGES, BUT THE RED ONE FAILED. I REPLACED IT WITH AN OLD ONE, WHICH WAS NOT COMPATIBLE. I then went to a web page and printed out a color picture. There was no Magenta (red) in the picture. Rebooted the printer and computer and tried again. No red. Did a Printer Status (Setup, Tools, Display Estimated Ink Levels) and it said the Magenta cartridge was ok, but it didn't print the color Magenta. So I ejected the Magenta cartridge and got ink on my hands because it was leaking. I replaced it with the old Magenta (red) cartridge. The printer recognized it and red now works. I put the new Magenta cartridge in a plastic bag, threw it out. Now I have a working printer. Then I pulled the print head to label it with the date I installed it. There was red ink all over the head. What a mess. Got that cleaned up. Reinstalled head and cartridges. Get the message "Several of the cartridges are damaged. Replace them". So I reseated them and got the same message. So with power on, I opened the front cover, let the head get in the leftmost position, then pulled the power plug (without turning off the power switch). Waited 60 seconds. Inserted the power cord. Did a print head align. Black is fine. Red is barely working. Printer status report. Red is "ok" but doesn't print. Cleaning printhead now. Red doesn't print. Now doing second level cleaning. Message Depleted Magenta must be replaced. Installing new Magenta 951XL cartridge. Estimated ink level shows Magenta full. Waiting for printer to settle down. Printing Estimated ink level report. Red works. I think it's fixed. Aligning Printhead now. Red lines now print on Printhead Alignment page. The before and after bird picture looks good. Print a color picture. "One or more cartridges appear to be damaged" Showing Black cartridge. Reseated new Black cartridge that came with the print head. Setup, Tools, Align Printhead. Black and Red lines print. Bird picture looks good. Now yellow not working. Replacing setup cartridge with an original Yellow (used). Shook test new Cyan (blue) cartridge. Hardly any ink left. Replaced it with a brand new one. Align Printhead. Black and red prints. Bird picture looks good. Waiting for printer to settle down. Alignment Successful. Printing picture with primary colors. Blue doesn't work. Reseat blue cartridge. Printer has lost it's mind. Printing Magenta instead of Cyan. And no, the cartridges are in the correct slots. With front panel open and printhead to left, power still on, I pull the power cord for a reset. 60 seconds. Insert cord. Shut front panel. Printer Status Report. Colors Cyan not printing. Prints Magenta for Cyan. Eject cartridges. Pull out printhead. Red ink everywhere. All over my hand. Cleaned off printhead and hands. This takes about 5 minutes. Reinstall head and cartridges. Plug power cord in back and close front door. Printer boots up. Now Magenta is ok. Cyan (blue) is printing Magenta too. Aligning printhead. Turns out, reading the Printer Status Report, my Magenta expired 4/22/16. Today is 2-5-2020. (it shows dates on Printer Status Report. )Lets try a new one. Cyan prints correctly. Magenta not at all. Reseat Magenta. Pull power cord and wait. Power it up. Aligning printer. Black and Red lines ok. Birds look wrong color. Yellow not printing. Cyan is magenta. Black is ok. Put in newer color cartriges. Now working. Replaced cartriges that expired in 2016. Picture will primary colors (using new ink cartriges) works. I think it was a cartridge firmware problem. The Old cartriges didn't support HP 951XL Z10. Apparently you can't use the older cartridges and the new ones. Hopefully this will help someone.

My HP OfficeJet Printer would not print anything. It just stated there was something wrong with the Printer or with the Print System. Honestly, I was taking a gamble of the problem and I was hesitant about purchasing a replacement head for my HP OfficeJet Pro printer. But after reading many comments on the Internet, I decided I would take the chance of the issue being the Printhead. Generally replacement items don't always work as stated. BUT, this was a GREAT product, super easy to install (about 2min) and the setup Ink Cartridges worked wonderfully. Once I replaced the old Printhead unit with this new one, the Printer warnings went away after about 10 seconds, and it went straight to the Printer Alignment mode. After that stopped, I went to print and it came out perfect, back to normal. This saved me from having to purchase another $1,200 printer! My HP Printer is 5 years old and still running strong, especially after replacing the Printhead. Thanks Amazon!

Direct drop-in replacement. All error messages go away and the printer works again. This was my last attempt to fix this printer before tossing it out the window. HP has finally achieved their goal making an ink selling device. The fact that they compromise the printer operation and totally alienate loyal customers is of no consequence. Far larger company are no longer with us do to this type of attitude. I will never purchase nor recommend a HP product,,,, EVER. This print head and the accompanying cartridges ( all great ) should allow me never again to deal with HP until this unit finally hits the garbage heap.

I was afraid I was going to have to purchase a new printer when it stopped working. So glad I was able to find the printhead available through Amazon. It was an easy fix. Downside was I had to get rid of print cartridges which were still full of very expensive ink. I'd read that the old cartridges didn't work with the new printhead and the kit did come with new cartridges so the upside was that I was up and going as soon as I replaced the printhead and ink cartridges.

Some trouble initiating the printer after installing new print head as instructions say you must use startup cartridges provided. Finally surmised that HP Instant Ink users can’t because printer won’t allow it. Once those reinstalled, new print head worked great!

Like it a lot. Install instr were great. The new printer head works great.

Got my HP Officejet Pro 8600 back in 2011. My Printhead finally gave out on me. This worked PERFECTLY! it's like a brand new printer again. Definitely worth the money, the Ink alone costs what all of this costs! I needed new print cartridges, you definitely want to use new cartridges in a new printhead. This takes care of it all! no more streaks or irregular colors!

Sencillo el cambio, buena manera de conservar una impresora sin invertir mucho más dinero, ahora a recuperar la inversión. 🙂

This was the only source of printheads for this make and model of 3 in one colour printer and it saved me from discarding the same and purchasing a replacement. Not cheap by any means but cheaper than a new printer.

delivery was a week late and the unit works but seems to be defective on the magenta slot and requires print head cleaning every few prints...