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  • $200 to fix a printer?

    One from the boss

    About a month ago, one of our laser printers was failing. It still worked, but was becoming increasingly louder by the hour. We do quite a bit of printing--internal reports, our daily inventory sheets, customer account reports, etc. all of which are directed to that printer. It's constantly in use, in other words. So it wasn't any surprise that it was starting to wear out.

    I did what I could to diagnose the main problem. That is, the fuser was going out. It's supposed to shut down when the printer stops printing, and then fire back up when the next print job starts. Doing so helps it stay cool, and helps prolong its life. But, because it was failing, stayed "on" excessively, leading to constant paper jams, and being seriously warm to the touch. In fact, when I opened up the rear cover...heat literally poured out of the printer. My hands were a good 3 feet away, and I could still feel it

    Boss insisted that I should call the repair place, and get it fixed. No matter of "why should we pay them $200 to come over here...and tell me something I already know. The fuser is shot, and a new one is over $300" would sway him. Why you'd want to drop $500-plus into an old printer when you could buy a new one for $700 I'll never know. Where I failed though, the 3rd party tech succeeded. Seems that one of his suppliers had someone cancel an order on him, and meant that we could secure a rather nice HP laser printer for less than $500, and two toner cartridges for $100 each, simply because he wanted the stuff out of his office!
    Aerodynamics are for people who can't build engines. --Enzo Ferrari

  • #2
    And? Did he take the offer?

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    • #3
      Where i did my co-op we did our giant corporations electronic repairs. They told me don't be like X, X was known for bragging that no printer ever came in he couldn't fix. He would also put $1300 worth of parts into a printer that was worth $1000 NEW. It was one thing to have a printer that was "scrapped" and yank the working parts out of it it but when we started approaching how much we valued a used printer at it was worth scrapping. The mangers liked not having extra come out of their budgets.
      I'm sorry reading is not a new concept it has been widely taught in our nation for at least the past 100 years. Please, learn to do it CORRECTLY before you become contagious.

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      • #4
        Quoth Yarnil View Post
        And? Did he take the offer?
        Yep, we have an awesome HP laser printer at work now. Still haven't scrapped the old printer yet, mainly because I don't feel like carrying that beast down the steps to the car. This one is getting cut up for parts--I'd actually try to reuse it, but with the shot fuser, that's not happening.
        Aerodynamics are for people who can't build engines. --Enzo Ferrari

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        • #5
          Quoth protege View Post
          Yep, we have an awesome HP laser printer at work now. Still haven't scrapped the old printer yet, mainly because I don't feel like carrying that beast down the steps to the car. This one is getting cut up for parts--I'd actually try to reuse it, but with the shot fuser, that's not happening.
          If the old one is an HP, the only real parts you can grab are the paper grabber rollers. Everything else is basically model specific.

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          • #6
            The office I'm in has a small HP laser printer that we use for printing envelopes. A few weeks ago it DFO'ed, I googled the error code and it turned out to be the system board among other problems that had been there before and everything just imploded. Expensive for that old a model and not much we could do about it; I already printer-whispered that thing back from the dead twice and my powers would not work a third time. I mentioned to Bossman that it might be cheaper in the long run to find a new printer, recommended a couple brands/models and meanwhile leave a note for Office Manager to call the printer repair guy they have for that machine.

            OM decides to just use the other laser which is also on its last legs and sounds like a dying elk trapped in a dumpster...it should be interesting when that one dies as well.
            Last edited by Dreamstalker; 04-23-2011, 01:57 PM.
            "I am quite confident that I do exist."
            "Excuse me, I'm making perfect sense. You're just not keeping up." The Doctor

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            • #7
              My guess is your boss is of an old school mind where the $700 printer was better built and cost $2000 or more. Those ones were worth repairing. Electronics of all kinds have gone downhill. Personally I see that as a good thing as it lets you go out and get brand new rather than playing the guessing game with a repair.
              D.I.L.L.I.G.A.F.
              Quoth = Crossbow "EvilHomer, Irv, Gravekeeper, and Seraph: the Four Horsemen of the Dumbpocalypse."

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              • #8
                I don't think he's of the old school. I think he's just being cheap. I can understand wanting to get your money's worth, but this goes far beyond that. There comes a time when fixing something simply isn't worth it. You'll spend more over the long run, in other words. It happens with computers, cars, and other equipment.

                For example, one of my home computers is failing. It already looks like a Frankencomputer--the side of the case is off to help with cooling, the front of the case is off because the power button broke, etc. Booting it up is a pain, so I have to leave it on constantly. It's 8 years old, and I'm not spending more money on it. I got my money's worth out of it. When it finally goes, it'll get replaced.
                Aerodynamics are for people who can't build engines. --Enzo Ferrari

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                • #9
                  Quoth protege View Post
                  I don't think he's of the old school. I think he's just being cheap. I can understand wanting to get your money's worth, but this goes far beyond that. There comes a time when fixing something simply isn't worth it. You'll spend more over the long run, in other words. It happens with computers, cars, and other equipment.
                  For several years someone at my company insisted on keeping our copiers/printers in service. Problem was, most had over 2 MILLION pages. One had over 3. They would not staple, double siding would cause them to jam. After unjamming, they frequently wouldn't recognize you cleared the jam requiring a service call. If you tried to run a large job, say 15 pages from the printer function it would cause a jam. More than 50 copies would cause it to lock up for some reason, again require a service call.

                  We changed the default printers on all PCs to our stand alone HP LaserJets or Brother laser printers. When we had 8 service calls in 5 days on three copiers, each billable due to the age, they finally found the money to let us replace them with new color MFP printer/scanner/fax units.

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                  • #10
                    Boss is a cool guy, but he delegates all operational stuff to OM and is scared of her. OM's 'promotion' to Executive Director has gone to her head; she can't really handle anything that's not related to donors without detailed directions from Boss.

                    Methinks that OM is trying to save money by jury-rigging stuff...what I don't think she realizes is that tactic can only work for so long and when something really does fail, the half-assed fixes have mucked it up far beyond any cost-effective repair.
                    "I am quite confident that I do exist."
                    "Excuse me, I'm making perfect sense. You're just not keeping up." The Doctor

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                    • #11
                      Quoth Dreamstalker View Post
                      Methinks that OM is trying to save money by jury-rigging stuff...what I don't think she realizes is that tactic can only work for so long and when something really does fail, the half-assed fixes have mucked it up far beyond any cost-effective repair.
                      I think I've posted about the 'wonderful' laptop my office once had. This was formerly my boss' daughter's computer. Somehow, it ended up with a broken screen. The laptop still worked, but the screen was messed up. Also having issues, was the touchpad and keyboard. Crapaq (who wanted $700 for a new screen ) wouldn't fix it since it had been 'abused,' and I wasn't allowed to make it 'disappear.'

                      Unfortunately, my boss noticed that it had an additional monitor connection, and plugs for a regular keyboard and mouse. He told me to hook up an old CRT monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and put it on one of the intern desks. I did as I was told. That piece of shit worked for awhile, until we moved. Then I felt that since we needed a computer to run the fax software, it would be perfect. The software required nothing more than a quick setup--everything else was automated. I quietly swapped it out, and nobody was the wiser. Again, it worked for awhile...until it started having power issues. This time though, it quietly "disappeared" when we moved again.

                      It wouldn't be coming back. That piece of shit found its way into my garage...at which time I put it out of its misery. That is, I beat the crap out of it with the fence maul
                      Aerodynamics are for people who can't build engines. --Enzo Ferrari

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                      • #12
                        Quoth protege View Post
                        For example, one of my home computers is failing. It already looks like a Frankencomputer--the side of the case is off to help with cooling, the front of the case is off because the power button broke, etc. Booting it up is a pain, so I have to leave it on constantly. It's 8 years old, and I'm not spending more money on it. I got my money's worth out of it. When it finally goes, it'll get replaced.
                        Computers are a different story. The only computers I've come across that weren't practical to repair, were too old to be of significant use even if they were working, with the exception of motherboard failures, in which case the components were worth scavenging.

                        8 years old, so 2003? 99% chance it's a Pentium 4, NetBurst Celeron, or a late Athlon XP, all of which should be viable for light desktop use for at least another three years. Buy a new case ($40 or so), dust it out, reformat/reinstall the OS, add some RAM ($30-60 depending on the system). Consider a faster hard drive, too, but get a SATA drive (and a cheap PCI->SATA card if you need it) so you can carry over the drive into a new computer.

                        Oh, and I almost forgot! Pull off and regrease every heatsink you can. There goes your overheating issues.
                        Last edited by roothorick; 04-28-2011, 11:29 PM.

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                        • #13
                          Quoth roothorick View Post
                          8 years old, so 2003? 99% chance it's a Pentium 4, NetBurst Celeron, or a late Athlon XP, all of which should be viable for light desktop use for at least another three years. Buy a new case ($40 or so), dust it out, reformat/reinstall the OS, add some RAM ($30-60 depending on the system). Consider a faster hard drive, too, but get a SATA drive (and a cheap PCI->SATA card if you need it) so you can carry over the drive into a new computer.
                          I thought about doing that. But, the computer seems to have some motherboard issues--it doesn't always boot up. Plus, I always find myself having to reset the clock...because the battery (which has been replaced, to no avail) doesn't seem to hold the setting. If the board truly is going, I'm reluctant to spend more money on it, especially since it's 8 years old.
                          Aerodynamics are for people who can't build engines. --Enzo Ferrari

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                          • #14
                            Quoth protege View Post
                            I thought about doing that. But, the computer seems to have some motherboard issues--it doesn't always boot up. Plus, I always find myself having to reset the clock...because the battery (which has been replaced, to no avail) doesn't seem to hold the setting. If the board truly is going, I'm reluctant to spend more money on it, especially since it's 8 years old.
                            Yeah, I wouldn't spend any money on a board that wouldn't keep clock even with a known good battery. However, it could still be worth your while to poke around the secondhand market looking for a good deal on a new board.

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                            • #15
                              Quoth protege View Post
                              Why you'd want to drop $500-plus into an old printer when you could buy a new one for $700 I'll never know.
                              It could be as simple as having money in the Opex budget for maintenance, but no money in the Capex budget for purchases.

                              In large businesses, it can sometimes be *far* more tax effective to spend X on repairs than X+Y on a new purchase.

                              Also in large businesses, it usually is *far, far* easier to get approval (depending on the anal retentiveness of the beancounters) for spending on maintenance than purchases.

                              Just saying that sometimes choices in business can make sense even if they don't make any actual sense.

                              If that makes sense...

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