HP c5180 printer problem - not on Leopard

I recently bought the HP printer. On going thhrouhg the installation set up, after turning the printer on it never allowed me to chose a language - in fact even the off button does not work to turn the machine off. There was however the flashing warning light to the left.Since the next step after language is alignmet of the printer and initialising of the printer cartridges - this part never happened either.

Power is a little unstable and on looking at th power plug to the imac it looks to be missing one female element that plugs into the male element of the imac. I'm not sure if this is relevant.

APple support said that installing the HP software and connecting the imac via the USB cable at this point of the installation would resolve the issue (this is not what the HP instructions say but ok.)

The installation virtually went rhough like the instructions mentioned, the light no longer flashes . I can see the printer in the drop down menu but it does not print to anywhere.

I spoke to the HP help desk in India and they seemed to think it was a hardware problem of the printer and should be returned - has anyone had this issue before ?