Won't show any ink when it prints. comes up ink system failure.

There's a pretty good chance the printer can be recovered. I have had this issue before, and I think I know why these printers clog so much. From what I have seen, there are three design flaws with these printers.

• Poor printhead design, poorly designed service station.
  • The bad pad design pushes waste ink onto the head and accelerates the rate at which the printers clog or error out. As they age, the frequency increases accordingly. It also likes to deposit waste ink on the rear electrical contacts.
  • If the head is bad or does it a lot and you're cleaning it every few weeks, that's the end of the printer -- cleaning the pads sucks.

It sounds like you're dealing with both issues: The waste ink pads are filling up (accelerating the problem), and the printhead is likely somewhat clogged. To fix both issues at once, take the printhead out to clean it.

IMPORTANT: While you can go further and clean the service station internally, I don't recommend even considering it; it's tedious and very, very messy. On the two dead ones I opened for motors (25k on one; don't ask how much they spent on ink as I don't even want to know). After that unit died, they now have a mono laser. The other one had 10k and was saturated from head cleanings, which looked like they relied on cleaning too much due to non-use. To get them, I needed gloves and a protective surface.
You also have to deal with a waste ink counter in most (if not all) printers. Even IF you clean it, the printer will still think it's full without resetting it. Not only do you need to reset the counter, but it's also very messy. You can sometimes blot it with a throwaway towel and eliminate some of the ink, but that's as low as I'd go if I got a 3rd one.

Follow this guide on how to clean it: HP B210a printhead cleaning. This method is the best since you can handle both problems simultaneously without worrying about the issue for a couple of years.

As I have learned over time, this is a way to avoid replacing the printer for a little longer, but it is not a good permanent solution. Once the pads fill up, they WILL GET to a point where they error out so often and need to be cleaned a lot more often. Once this occurs, the best ending is to recycle it and pull it out of service permanently. Clean it and see how long it lasts; replace the printer if that doesn't work. When HP sold the part, it was $80; now EOL.