Do you have an ink cartridge installed? If not, the unit might be looking for one. The Alps do make a lot of racket when they power on, and the unit will go through and check every installed cartridge. I guess that it figures out which color is installed in which position. The cartidges have barcodes on them so the unit can tell which is which. If you are planning to get 3rd party ink, keep the Alps cartridges so that you can refill them and the unit can read the barcodes.