I talked to a man at Office Max who was looking at ink cartridges. I asked him if he had tried to generic cartridges and he said twice, never again. Refilled cartridges can leak and ruin the printer.

Even printing in black it uses colored cartridges. I set mine on black only and it saves me from buying colored ink cartridges. On my HP printers that option is usually hidden under grey scale.

Had the same bad experiences when I had an Epson printer. I tried the "fill your own kits" and the pre-refilled cartridges. The fill your own was nothing but a big mess and the pre filled seemed to not have nearly as much ink in them as the OEM cartridges. My Epson finally died and I purchased a Canon and branded of my forehead "never buy refilled cartridges".

I also went through an extended period wherein I printed in "grey scale" only, thinking I was saving money by not burning through the colored inks. Then, when I finally needed to print something in color I found that I couldn't. The color cartridge was in failure mode due to non-use. Now, I try to print a little something in color every week to keep it ship-shape. Beats throwing an almost full cartridge into the trash. As always...YMMV.

Ink jet printers are an expensive route to take for a home printer used only occasionally, and when the color feature is needed only occasionally. Why buy a color printer if you print mostly in black and white?

B/W laser printers are a cheaper alternative, the "ink" lasts longer and they provide higher quality prints than ink jets. For those with occasional color printing requirements, your local Fed Ex Office store or "drug store" can provide very high quality document or photo color printing for a nominal cost. The quality of the output from such commercial machines is far superior to what one can do at home. Why pay more and get less?

I can't remember the last time I printed anything in color. Most of my printing is just instructions for something or an email I want to save. My last HP deskjet all in one only cost $69. and works for me.

Maybe you're lucky enough to have a HP model that will print black/white even if the color cartridge is puked. A lot of them won't, including my Officejet 4500.

Just thought my problems were over. For some reason, the printer now "recuses" itself from being the default printer and will not let me select it as the default printer. So far, the only way I have been able to print anything is to unplug the printer for quite some time, delete it via the uninstall, turn off the computer, wait a while, then plug the printer back in, then turn the computer back on, and let it reinstall the printer.

But once I haven't used the computer for a few hours, the printer "leaves the system" once again. I am at my wits ends. Any advice and/or guidance would be appreciated.

Since I do print in color for various reasons and do a lot of printing records, reports etc in B/W. I have a Epson 820 color inkjet and a Samsung B/W lazier I picked up at a good price. Both wireless and that works for me. I am picky about the type of paper I use. The price of both is cheaper that a big color lazier color one==for ME

walnutcreek, have you tried running the wireless connection setup from the printer yet? Just delete the old connection and start over.

I really think that might help.

PK, I don't even know how to go about deleting the old connection. If you would be kind enough to advise me how to do so, I will be glad to delete that connection and start over.

I googled for the wireless network settings on your printer. Sorry, but I am an HP woman :-) The link below has screen shots if a visual presentation is more your style.

Here they are nearly verbatim:

Selecting Wireless Network Settings From the Control Panel
You can select or change wireless network settings using your product control panel.

To install your product on a wireless network, follow the instructions on the Start Here sheet and install the necessary software from the product CD. The installer program guides you through network setup.
Note: Breakdown or repair of this product may cause loss of fax and network data and settings. Epson is not responsible for backing up or recovering data and settings during or after the warranty period. We recommend that you make your own backup or print out your fax and network data and settings.

Press the Setup button.
Press the arrow buttons to select Network Settings and press the OK button.

Here is where you see your network name and choose to remove or forget the network, then run the wizard.

Select Wireless LAN Setup and press the OK button. You see this screen:

Select Setup Wizard and press the OK button.
Note: If you need to disable the wireless network to set up your product on an Ethernet network, select Disable Wireless LAN instead. Then follow the instructions on the Start Here sheet to set up your product on a wired network and install the necessary software from the product CD. The installer program guides you through network setup.
Select the name of your wireless network (SSID) or enter the name manually.
Note: To enter the wireless network name manually, press the arrow buttons to select Other SSIDs and press the OK button. Use the displayed keypad to enter your network name, as described in the next step.
Enter your wireless password (or network name and then password) using the displayed keypad.

Note: If your password has uppercase (ABC) or lowercase (abc) letters, make sure you enter them correctly.
Press the arrow buttons to highlight a character or a function button displayed on the keypad. Then press the OK button to select it.
To change the case of letters or select symbols, select AB12 (uppercase), ab12 (lowercase), or !#%@ and press the OK button. Then highlight an option and press the OK button to select it.
To enter a space, select and press the OK button.
To delete characters, select the back arrow and press the OK button.
When you finish entering characters, select Done and press the OK button.
Confirm the displayed network settings and press the OK button to save them.

Note: If you need to change a setting, press the Back button.
If you want to print a network setup report, select Yes and press the OK button. (Otherwise, select No.)
Press the Copy button to exit. The WiFi light should now be on, but not flashing.
Note: If the WiFi light is off, you may have selected the wrong network name (SSID) or entered the password incorrectly. Repeat these steps to try again.

Here is a link that might be useful: Epson WorkForce 645 All-in-One Printer

Thank you. It is now fixed.

I'm glad that you got it working :-)