telophase | (no subject)

In case I hadn't actually told anyone, my spiffy new large-format printer had been exhibiting some weird problems lately - primarily turning itself off and not letting me turn it back on unless I waited several hours, then unplugged the power cord for a bit and plugged it back in. Then it'd stay on long enough to print one thing, then turn itself off again. Poking around the HP support forums led me to believe that it might be a problem with the power supply on the printer.

I finally sat down last week to navigate the HP tech support phone system. After verifying that my warranty was good through November, I got switched over to the tech support line. Now, I know that a lot of companies are outsourcing to India. I also know that many tech support personnel have phone names, much like DJs, which they give to customers. I further knew that many non-American tech support people are asked to take common American names, apparently to reassure reluctant customers that they are smart and know what they're talking about.

None of which saved me from giggles when a strongly-Indian-accented man answered the call with "Hello, my name is Steve. How can I help you today?" I think I covered them up fairly well, and I will report that the call went well, and he seemed to understand my idosyncratic English, which tends to get worse when (a) on the phone and (b) attempting to describe technical or mechanical problems. (I'm an offender of the "Well, the thing goes 'ping!' and then it doesn't do the thing where it's supposed to, y'know, 'rrrrrrrdeep!' and then other thing doesn't start when I do the other other thing, right?" variety.)

'Steve' asked if I'd tried another power cable and I had to admit that I didn't have another power cable of the sort needed, and that's pretty typical of my tech problems - I manage to investigate everything except for one simple thing, which turns out to be the problem and not whatever I self-diagnose it with. This is why I don't get angry when the tech monkey takes me through the "Is the power cable plugged in? Is the computer turned on?" script, because there's always at least one simple step I forgot to do. 'Steve' said he'd have them send one out and it should be there within 2 or 3 business days. If that didn't work, call back and they'd try something else. Sounds great - I could go buy one, but that would involve me spending actual money, and it's not quite payday yet, so might as well have HP send it on their dime.

So the package showed up today. And inside it is not the power cable I'd been told to expect, but a replacement power supply. Hm. Typical. It's been too painfree so far. But I shrug and install it anyway, and ... it works! I've printed out three pictures! And I turned the printer off - and this is the really exciting bit ... I turned it back on again! I haven't been able to do that for weeks! Whee!

So I don't know why or how I got sent the wrong part, but it ended up being the right part. I'm thinking maybe some 18-year-old yahoo in Supply looked at the work order, thought "Good god, the problem is never the cord! It's always the power supply!" and sent the power supply instead. His name may even have been Steve.

Here's to you, Steve and 'Steve'! Thanks to you, I shall now have 11x17" borderless prints of some of my pieces for A-Kon! I've already printed out a copy ofSesshoumaru that way, and despite some ink blobbage due to the ink cartridges being unused for a while, it looks STUNNING. I don't mind the blobbage - I found out that I can sell misprints at steeply discounted prices at cons and people will buy them, so I'll make back the cost of paper and ink. Wheeee! Back in business!

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Question - I know you said at one point, but heaven help me, I can't find it - what printer did you get? I'm looking (though I don't have the $1300 to blow on the one I *want*) so I'm curious what you have....and if this is an issue I should be aware of if it's the same one.........

Hurray! And I'm suspecting the 18-year-old Yahoo too. XD

HP Deskjet 9650 (http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/ho/WF06b/18972-236251-236261-14438-f17-306780-306782-306783.html). $400. You can use regular ink with it or get special photo ink which is supposed to be more archival than the regular stuff. Except for the power supply failing, I've been quite happy with it, and the tech support was great, since their screwup actually fixed it. :) I'd recommend this one - the low price with the performance are worth it, and I think when you spend $400 on a printer instead of $79, they treat your problems a little more seriously. :D

XD I just find it odd that the part that was sent to me by accident was the exact part that fixed it, which makes me suspect someone behind-the-scenes was active in it. I mean it could be someone reading the work order quickly and seeing "power cord" and misreading it as "power supply" since that's usually the problem, but...?

* Oh yeah - poke around the HP support forums, too, to get an idea of the issues that people have been having with it. I can't find the one that made me think it was the power supply, so it might have aged off the forums, but there's a few other people with other problems there.

And the only reason mine stayed unfixed so long was that I hadn't bothered to phone in about it. I'd assumed that I wasn't going to be able to have big prints for A-Kon some time ago, because I assumed I was going to have to send the printer in, so it wasn't a huge priority for me since I knew that my warranty was good for several months yet. (Registering it paid off in droves!)

You know, dumb luck, sometimes it has to be on your side ;>

The hubby did some poking around a while back when we started looking into it. There have been a number of printers in that range that I've wanted (since the DesignJet 130 is sooooo out of reach at the moment.....but I could do 24x36 on that baby) but he's dead set on the ideal that "if you're going to spend the money, might as well get something good." Gah...except that it means no printer for some time...

At least not until I know how things might go after these two cons..... *crossing fingers*

There's certainly something to be said for getting something good - but on the other hand, when you don't *have* one, you're not producing *any* income. :)

I also use mine for printing comic pencils in blue on manga paper so I can ink them, so it's been quite handy for that.

Strangely enough, my printer has started behaving for the first time in a year. Of course, I'm going to test my luck here in a minute to see if I can really start getting prints off of it again............assuming I can keep the cat away long enough......