They sure don't make them like they use to! :-(

[debngar Profile Private message]

I know they build ink-jet printers to not last very long and to throw away. But it looks like the laser printers are now built for a short life, then to throw away too. My Brother laser printer, only about 1 1/2 yr old or less, went kaput. I had an HP Laserjet 4 previously - for about 15 years and only had to give it up because it was incompatible with newer OS. Of course that one weighed a ton and the new one is made of plastic.

I tried everything from fooling the printer to think it still had toner in it (which it does) to a complete reboot and special button combination reset on the printer and still, no go.

So, any suggestions as to what brand, besides Brother which was not worth what I paid for it.

The other thing is I still don't have a new ink-jet printer. Someone told me the stores aren't stocking Epsons these days because they can't compete with online sellers of ink. Must be true as I went to a few places today and there isn't much available on the shelves, if anything.

Anyone else having problems getting Epson inks? I'd like to get an ink-jet that will print the label directly on the DVD, like I have done in the past with Epson. But I'm leaning toward a Canon since that seems to be what's available as far as ink is concerned. No sense buying an Epson online if it's troublesome to get ink.

[Diane48 Profile Private message]

Hi Debbie
I have a Canon MP980 which prints directly to a DVD. With the waterproof Tai Yuden discs it gives a really nice result. There are however a few lines from the printer rollers visible if you look hard enough. One thing that drives me crazy with the printer is that it cleans itself often which sometimes means witing for it to start the print job by up to three or four minutes whilst things whir and rattle within the printer. This not only wastes time but also ink. My older Canon printer (MP???) didn't clean as regularly or as often but then again it died from blocked nozzles after a long hot summer and a few weeks of no use. After I bought my new MP980 I read the reviews and other people were complaining also about the cleaning process. You may want to look at the online reviews for the printer you wish to buy.
I hope you make a good choice and will be interested to hear which printer you ended up with.
Cheers. Diane

[debngar Profile Private message]

Forgot to mention, I won't buy an all-in-one if I can help it. I disliked the HP I had a while ago. Pictures faded within a year and the scanner was poor quality. So I'll be getting a dedicated scanner too. I've relatively decided on the brand and price range already (Epson V330 or maybe a V500) but seems I'll have to get that online as retail stores are not stocking those on the shelves either.

Anyone using the Epson V330? If so, are you happy with it? Not sure if it works with W7 64-bit though - says W7 but not specifically W7-64-bit on the Epson website specs for this model.

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

As per the laser printer, how did you try to fool it into thinking it had toner? Did you tape over the hole in the cartridge? If not, you can give a try. The darned things always report they're empty long before they are.

I've had a Brother for a few years that's a little trooper, but then, it's purely a black-and-white model used for text only.

HP lost my business a long time ago by refusing to update drivers for slightly older products, which naturally resulted in having to toss perfectly good machines. This happened with both a printer and a film scanner, the latter not being cheap and therefore really ticking me off.

Barbara

[debngar Profile Private message]

Yes, I put black electrical tape over the clear windows on both sides of the cartridge, then went through the counter reset procedure two or three times. Turned everything off, unplugged the printer, rebooted the computer so all buffers are clear, but still nothing. Also blew it out with air and cleaned the rollers, etc.

The toner light is not on. The paper light is on, not flashing though. I got one print out of it the first time I did the reset procedure It was a perfect print too, with no indication of any less toner on the print than before. I don't believe there is a paper jam. There is no paper inside the machine anywhere. It's not crumpling paper either. I know how to load it with the curve down. The machine just won't work.

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

I'm still using a HP Laserjet 6P that has about 85,000 pages run through it. I was concerned when I switched to Windows 7 about the drivers, however, after doing some Googling around, I found there is an option in the windows setup where you can tell it to get more drivers and then it did find the LJ6 drivers. I do have a Brother HL-5250DN in the livingroom on the network that (so far) has worked well. Prints quick and also duplex. Has a network interface which makes it easy to share. I did have to cover the hole on the toner to get it to use the rest of the toner, but that was a while ago. I believe the newer Brother toner cartridges are harder to bypass - just like Epson chipped their ink cartridges to prevent people from refilling them (or as their advertising folks came up with "to protect people from fake ink cartridges" (yeah, right). There seem to be two classes of printers out there - the one for the average home user that is put together just as cheap as possible in the hopes that it will make it to the front door before it falls apart and the heavy duty machines that businesses are using (mostly leased these days) that are designed to print lots of paper, but they cost quite a bit more. Color laser printers are the classic bait game - you can buy one for about $300 these days with the "starter cartridges" (good for about 50 pages .. well, maybe a few more), but when you go to buy the new toner cartridges for them you discover you are going to be spending $500 or so just for the toner.

mikey

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

Sure sounds like the printer is toast. What bothers me when this kind of thing happens is that it could be just a simple thing requiring that a tech replace something tiny that costs just pennies, but the price of having such a thing analyzed is a whole different story.

We need a town populated by experts in all kinds of computer fields from programming to software to electronics. Everyone could work on the barter system. (I'm an expert tomato gardener. )

Barbara

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

The problem with that is you can't even get the "part that costs pennies". Cars are a classic example. After years of service, it is normal for the brushes in the alternators and the starters to wear out. Used to be you could walk into any auto parts store and ask for a set of brushes for a xyz car starter. $7 please. Now NONE of the stores carry them any more. $250 or more for a new (or rebuilt) alternator. Last time this happened, it took me quite a few calls to get someone to finally point me at a rebuilder in the local area. $10 for alternator brushes, 30 minutes to change, $250 saved. You just can't get parts any more. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

mikey

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

My husband has an old army Jeep, and he's found several dealers who make their living off parts for such dinosaurs. Probably can't find such a thing for a modern-day Jeep. I wonder where they get the parts--from the army, perhaps?

A couple months ago, I met a fellow who takes computers, phones, etc. "off people's hands," and he takes the things apart, salvaging all the good stuff. If someone wants to keep an old machine running, he's got the parts. A rare bird.

Barbara

[debngar Profile Private message]

The problem with that is you can't even get the "part that costs pennies". Cars are a classic example. After years of service, it is normal for the brushes in the alternators and the starters to wear out. Used to be you could walk into any auto parts store and ask for a set of brushes for a xyz car starter. $7 please. Now NONE of the stores carry them any more. $250 or more for a new (or rebuilt) alternator. Last time this happened, it took me quite a few calls to get someone to finally point me at a rebuilder in the local area. $10 for alternator brushes, 30 minutes to change, $250 saved. You just can't get parts any more. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

mikey

Sounds like you found a good solution but unfortunate for you having to jump through all those hoops to get there, sheesh. The alternative to buying new brushes might be to go to a pick-and-pull wrecking yard I suppose but few people have the time or skill/knowhow to do that. My car is in the shop today for regular maintenance. I have no other way to get that stuff done. Guess the upside is I can say I'm supporting that local business and keeping those people employed which is a good thing.

[debngar Profile Private message]

-snip-
A couple months ago, I met a fellow who takes computers, phones, etc. "off people's hands," and he takes the things apart, salvaging all the good stuff. If someone wants to keep an old machine running, he's got the parts. A rare bird.

Barbara

Last month I gave about 4-5 CPUs, associated stuff and an old TV to e-waste representing a compilation of the last 20 years or so of computers used at home and at our business etc. So nice to have more room in my closets and garage as result, yippee. It didn't cost me a thing since it went to our church group who gets paid by the pound for all that stuff. I removed the hard drives but some were a puzzle as they all attached to the cases differently. One drive I can't get a hand drill through, tough as nails. Not sure how to get that one permanently out of commission. The drill barely made a dent.

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

Sandpaper? Acid bath? Blowtorch? Tiptop of a lightning rod?

I assume you're speaking of drives used in business, right? I guess the last thing we think about when getting a new computer is to do a deep format of any hard drives on the old one.

Barbara

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

There was several specials on that some time ago. Seems that most people don't realize that the big printers (or the combo units - printer/fax/scanner) have hard drives in them to "buffer" the jobs up for later. When the job completes, the file is erased ... well actually, the directory entry is flagged as available, but the data remains. The special showed how many documents were on some of those printers they got from salvage etc - important court documents showing names and addresses, important sensitive business documents with all sorts of proprietary information etc were found on some of those machines. In the past, the dark areas I have been in had the policy of taking the platters out of hard drives and tossing them in acid baths.

Here is one of the specials from a while back:
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18563_162-6412439.html

What I have done with old drives before giving them away is to use the free copy/wipe utility from Terabyte Unlimited to wipe the drive (I create a bootable CD with the utility and use an old machine for the task). It overwrites any data multiple times on the drive - the problem with a simple erase (or even many format routines) is is simply recreates the initial file structure on the disk, but it does not actually wipe the sectors of the information they contain. There are a number of utilities out there that can "secure erase" or "wipe" a drive. This one works for me:
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/copywipe.php

mikey

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

the problem with a simple erase (or even many format routines)

Are you saying that the heavy-duty format you can choose as opposed to the quick format doesn't erase the data any better than the quick routine? Is there actually no difference? I've always chosen the this-takes-forever format before reinstalling Windows because I thought it was wiping out the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Barbara

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

I'm not sure about the current version of Fromat - I am speaking from my experience in the past where I could do a format (or FDISK) and was able to still view data in sectors with a sector editor utility (Norton Utilities used to be very handy that way). I have not looked into the current version of Format since I have gotten used to using the copy/wipe utility when I want to "clean" a drive. 2brightsparks.com also has their "on click" utilities that includes one for a secure erase of files (and I believe a drive as well although I have not used that feature).
http://www.2brightsparks.com/onclick/index.html
http://www.2brightsparks.com/onclick/doc.html
I have the "On Click" utilities, but have not managed to get them installed on my new Windows 7 partition yet - soon, real soon !!

The best part of using a bootable CD in an old box to completely wipe a disk is there is no chance of you selecting the wrong option and erasing the wrong disk - if your good disks are not in the system, you can't shoot yourself in the foot (old sys admin here speaking from experience )

mikey