HP DeskJet 2700 Bleeding Ink After Refilling HP 67/67XL Cartridges: Causes and Fixes

Question

I watched your "Refill HP 67 67XL Ink Cartridge - Part 1 - Fundamentals" video and refilled the HP 67 cartridge in my HP DeskJet 2700. The cartridge has ink now, but when I print, the ink looks like it is bleeding or spreading on the paper. What could have gone wrong, and how can I fix it?

Answer

For an HP DeskJet 2700 using an HP 67 or 67XL cartridge, bleeding or excessively wet printing immediately after a refill is usually a cartridge ink-flow problem rather than an electronic printer error. No specific error code was mentioned in your question, so I would concentrate first on the refilled cartridge and the ink delivery rather than the printer's electronics.

1. The Cartridge May Have Been Overfilled

The first possibility is that too much ink was injected into the cartridge.

HP 67 and 67XL cartridges use an internal sponge to hold ink. Ideally, the refill ink should be absorbed into that sponge rather than leaving a large quantity of free liquid inside the cartridge. If the sponge becomes excessively saturated, ink can flood the integrated printhead at the bottom of the cartridge.

When that happens, you may see:

• Very dark or overly wet printing

• Ink spreading around letters or images

• Smears or streaks

• Drops of ink forming underneath the cartridge

• Ink transferring to other areas of the paper

• Colors mixing or appearing muddy

If the problem began immediately after the refill, overfilling is one of the first things I would suspect.

Remove the cartridge and inspect the nozzle plate on the bottom. If ink is visibly pooling or dripping from the printhead, the cartridge is probably flooded.

You can gently touch the nozzle area against a clean, lint-free absorbent material to remove excess ink. Do not rub or scrub the nozzle plate. You want the material to absorb excess ink without damaging the microscopic nozzle area.

After removing the excess, allow the cartridge to sit upright for a while so that the internal pressure can stabilize before reinstalling it.

2. Check Whether the Cartridge Is Actually Leaking

A properly refilled cartridge should not continuously drip ink from the printhead.

A small ink mark when the printhead is touched against an absorbent surface is normal. Continuous dripping is not.

If ink keeps coming out without stopping, there may be too much ink inside the cartridge, the internal sponge may no longer be controlling the ink correctly, or the cartridge may have developed an air-pressure problem.

Also inspect the cartridge body for cracks or damaged refill holes. If the cartridge has been refilled numerous times, deterioration of the internal sponge or printhead can eventually make the cartridge unreliable even when the refill procedure itself is correct.

3. Make Sure the Cartridge Vent Can Breathe

HP cartridges need proper air exchange as ink leaves the cartridge. If a vent is completely blocked, ink flow can become inconsistent.

Check the top label and the area where you performed the refill. Do not completely seal the cartridge in a way that blocks its normal venting system.

At the same time, you do not want to create a huge uncontrolled opening in the top of the cartridge. The goal is normal ventilation, not an open reservoir.

Incorrect air pressure can produce symptoms ranging from starvation and missing nozzles to excessive ink flow.

4. Make Sure You Used the Correct Ink

The ink itself also matters.

An HP 67 black cartridge and HP 67 tri-color cartridge are designed around inks with particular viscosity, surface tension, and drying characteristics. Using an ink that was formulated for a completely different printer technology can result in excessive spreading, slow drying, weak colors, clogged nozzles, or abnormal ink flow.

The black and color inks are not necessarily interchangeable either. Using an inappropriate ink formulation can make the printed area look wetter and cause letters or colors to bleed into the surrounding paper.

If the cartridge printed normally before the refill and started bleeding immediately after you introduced a different ink, the ink formulation should be considered as a possible cause.

5. Check the Paper and Print Settings

It is also important to distinguish a flooded cartridge from paper-related bleeding.

Try printing on a clean sheet of ordinary, good-quality plain printer paper. Some inexpensive, damp, coated, or highly absorbent papers can cause ink to spread noticeably.

Also check the paper type selected in your printer settings. For example, telling the printer that you are using a specialty paper when you are actually using ordinary paper can change how much ink the printer deposits.

Try a basic document using Plain Paper and a normal print-quality setting. If the bleeding disappears, the cartridge itself may be fine and the problem may instead be related to the paper or print settings.

HP's own troubleshooting information for the DeskJet 2700 series also recommends checking the paper, cartridges, print settings, and printhead when diagnosing smeared, fuzzy, dark, or otherwise poor-quality output.

6. Print a Diagnostic or Test Page

A test page can help determine whether the problem affects black, color, or both cartridges.

If only black areas are bleeding, concentrate on the black HP 67/67XL cartridge. If only the colors are bleeding or mixing, concentrate on the tri-color cartridge.

If everything is smeared in exactly the same physical location on every sheet, inspect the paper path as well. Excess ink may already have transferred onto rollers or other surfaces inside the printer.

7. Use the Printer's Cleaning Function Carefully

If the cartridge is no longer dripping but the print quality remains poor, you can use the HP software or HP app to perform a printhead cleaning.

For the DeskJet 2700 series, HP provides print-quality tools that can clean the cartridge's integrated printhead.

However, I would not repeatedly run cleaning cycles while the cartridge is obviously flooded. Cleaning is more useful for missing, clogged, or inconsistent nozzles than for a cartridge that already has too much ink flowing through it.

First correct the flooding or overfilling problem. Then perform a test print and use the cleaning function only if necessary.

8. The Cartridge Itself May Be Worn Out

One important characteristic of the HP 67 system is that the printhead is built directly into the cartridge. When you replace the cartridge, you are also replacing the printhead.

Refilling allows you to reuse that printhead, but it does not make the printhead permanent.

A cartridge may work successfully through multiple refills and then begin developing problems such as:

• Missing nozzles

• Uneven ink flow

• Cross-contaminated colors

• Poor electrical contact

• Streaking

• Leakage

• Excessive bleeding

• Failure to print even though ink is present

Therefore, if you correct the ink level, confirm the correct ink was used, clean the nozzle area, check the vent and paper settings, and the cartridge still produces severely abnormal output, the cartridge itself may simply have reached the end of its useful refill life.

What I Would Check First

Because your problem appeared after filling the cartridge, I would start with the simplest explanation: remove the HP 67 cartridge and see whether the nozzle plate is excessively wet or dripping.

If it is, remove some of the excess ink rather than continuing to print. Let the cartridge stabilize upright, reinstall it, and print a simple test page on plain paper.

If the cartridge stops dripping but the print remains slightly smeared, inspect the printer's paper path for ink left behind during the flooding. If necessary, use the printer's smear-cleaning or print-quality maintenance functions.

If the problem continues after the cartridge is no longer flooded, then consider the ink formulation, paper settings, contaminated nozzles, internal cartridge damage, or a worn-out integrated printhead.

Addressing printer issues can be complicated because so much of the diagnosis requires hands-on inspection. For that reason, we're not able to provide individualized remote troubleshooting, repair suggestions, or ongoing technical support for printer repairs.

We do offer in-person evaluation and repair through our BCH Technologies printer diagnostic and repair facility [https://bchtechnologies.com/printer-repair-service]. Because demand is high, the service operates on a first-come, first-served basis, and there may be a wait of several weeks before a printer can be dropped off. Our services are structured so that we can work on either a complete printer or, where appropriate, certain individual components, with instructions provided for the applicable service.

We also recognize that professional repair is not always the most economical choice. For this reason, we strongly encourage self-help and online research whenever you are comfortable working on the printer yourself. A good starting point is YouTube and our BCH Technologies YouTube channel [https://youtube.com/@bchtechnologies]. On our channel homepage, use the search icon near the About section to search for your printer model, cartridge number, or specific symptom.

I receive dozens of questions asking whether we have a video covering a particular repair. After creating printer-repair videos for more than nine years, it is difficult to remember every video we have published, so searching directly on YouTube is usually the fastest method. YouTube may also recommend useful videos from other creators that address the same problem.

Thank you again for reaching out, for watching our HP 67 refill video, and for supporting BCH Technologies. I hope this gives you a better idea of why the cartridge may be bleeding after the refill and what areas to investigate.