davefoc
Philosopher
I recently purchased a renovated HP C6180 printer to go along with my new computer and new monitor.
The C6180 is a multi-function ink jet printer and the features include:
Network connection option
Fax
document feeder
scanner
color LCD preview screen
copier
Set up went fairly quickly. I used the drivers available from the HP web site because I didn't realize the machine had shipped with a Vista compatible install disk when I was doing the setup.
There weren't any problems getting the network printing function going including network printing through an RF link on my daughter's computer after the setup for the printer was completed on her unit.
First disappointment
The scanner seemed to be as slow as the USB 1.1 scanner that I already owned. I thought a 100 megabit per second ethernet connection would result in much faster scans than I had had previously with my 12.5 Kbps USB 1.1 scanner. I was wrong.
Second disappointment
Something in the scanner drivers prevented me from scanning directly into paint shop pro X. I kept getting some kind of error telling me to clear the paper feeder. The work around was to scan into the paste buffer and then paste into paint shoip pro. A little kludgy, but I don't scan that much stuff and I was OK with it.
Third disappointment
Woke up the next morning to find that when I restarted the computers the printer had disappeared as an option in my computer. My daughter could still print fine on her computer.
Fourth disappointment
I decided to call HP technical support. I might have screwed with the situation a little bit more, but I thought there was just some simple thing I could do to get the printer reinstalled as an option. When I tried just updating the drivers I got the message back that the drivers were up to date so the drivers were installed on my computer even if I couldn't print through them. After I gave the tech support guy my serial number he told me that HP wouldn't support the printer. Apparently the printer had been sold 14 months previously before I bought it and from HP's perspective free tech support was over at one year. I did badger the guy a bit and he gave me a clue that the installation of Norton might have caused the problem. I decided to just reinstall and see if that didn't fix the problem. It did.
Fifth disappointment
I was printing out some Excel spread sheets and found that the bottom part of some of the sheets was being cut off. Other Sheets that were about the same size printed fine. This was the final straw for me. We decided to wrap the printer up and take it back to Fry's.
An observation
I like picasa2 much better for handling photos than the software that came with this HP printer.
The return
They were nice and listened to my story but the guy taking the printer back wanted to charge me $50 for the print cartridges that I had installed. Kind of sad from my perspective especially since I hadn't done any color printing at all so the cartridges were still full. I asked to talk to the manager and he decided to charge $16 (10% of the purchase price) for returning the printer. I was fine with that although I felt Fry's had acted improperly when they sold renovated printers without noting that free technical support had run out on them. The renovated computers they sell are actually renovated under the aegis of HP and come with both a three month warranty and three months of technical support.
The new new printer
When I bought my new monitor it came with a printer that was free if you sent in the rebate forms. I wasn't sure I wanted it, but I called a friend and she said she could use another printer so I bought the Canon MP210 with the idea I'd give it to my friend. Now that I'd taken back my first printer I thought I'd try this one out. Instead of networking the printer like I had originally intended I would just give my daughter my old printer.
Everything so far has worked great with the new printer. The Excel spread sheet problem has gone away, Paint Shop Pro can use the scanner directly and the scanner is much faster than my old one.
I don't know if there is any point to all this. I felt bad about taking back the C6180, so much stuff on it worked really well. Now I'll have to keep the fax on my desk and my daughter will need to have a printer in her room. I probably will be stuck buying absurdly expensive print cartridges unless I use refilled cartridges. But in the end it seemed like getting a new directly connected printer worked out much better for our needs.
ETA: The document feeder on the C6180 made scanning of photos that are glued into scrap books difficult because there isn't a flat surface for a large scrap book page to lie on.
The C6180 is a multi-function ink jet printer and the features include:
Network connection option
Fax
document feeder
scanner
color LCD preview screen
copier
Set up went fairly quickly. I used the drivers available from the HP web site because I didn't realize the machine had shipped with a Vista compatible install disk when I was doing the setup.
There weren't any problems getting the network printing function going including network printing through an RF link on my daughter's computer after the setup for the printer was completed on her unit.
First disappointment
The scanner seemed to be as slow as the USB 1.1 scanner that I already owned. I thought a 100 megabit per second ethernet connection would result in much faster scans than I had had previously with my 12.5 Kbps USB 1.1 scanner. I was wrong.
Second disappointment
Something in the scanner drivers prevented me from scanning directly into paint shop pro X. I kept getting some kind of error telling me to clear the paper feeder. The work around was to scan into the paste buffer and then paste into paint shoip pro. A little kludgy, but I don't scan that much stuff and I was OK with it.
Third disappointment
Woke up the next morning to find that when I restarted the computers the printer had disappeared as an option in my computer. My daughter could still print fine on her computer.
Fourth disappointment
I decided to call HP technical support. I might have screwed with the situation a little bit more, but I thought there was just some simple thing I could do to get the printer reinstalled as an option. When I tried just updating the drivers I got the message back that the drivers were up to date so the drivers were installed on my computer even if I couldn't print through them. After I gave the tech support guy my serial number he told me that HP wouldn't support the printer. Apparently the printer had been sold 14 months previously before I bought it and from HP's perspective free tech support was over at one year. I did badger the guy a bit and he gave me a clue that the installation of Norton might have caused the problem. I decided to just reinstall and see if that didn't fix the problem. It did.
Fifth disappointment
I was printing out some Excel spread sheets and found that the bottom part of some of the sheets was being cut off. Other Sheets that were about the same size printed fine. This was the final straw for me. We decided to wrap the printer up and take it back to Fry's.
An observation
I like picasa2 much better for handling photos than the software that came with this HP printer.
The return
They were nice and listened to my story but the guy taking the printer back wanted to charge me $50 for the print cartridges that I had installed. Kind of sad from my perspective especially since I hadn't done any color printing at all so the cartridges were still full. I asked to talk to the manager and he decided to charge $16 (10% of the purchase price) for returning the printer. I was fine with that although I felt Fry's had acted improperly when they sold renovated printers without noting that free technical support had run out on them. The renovated computers they sell are actually renovated under the aegis of HP and come with both a three month warranty and three months of technical support.
The new new printer
When I bought my new monitor it came with a printer that was free if you sent in the rebate forms. I wasn't sure I wanted it, but I called a friend and she said she could use another printer so I bought the Canon MP210 with the idea I'd give it to my friend. Now that I'd taken back my first printer I thought I'd try this one out. Instead of networking the printer like I had originally intended I would just give my daughter my old printer.
Everything so far has worked great with the new printer. The Excel spread sheet problem has gone away, Paint Shop Pro can use the scanner directly and the scanner is much faster than my old one.
I don't know if there is any point to all this. I felt bad about taking back the C6180, so much stuff on it worked really well. Now I'll have to keep the fax on my desk and my daughter will need to have a printer in her room. I probably will be stuck buying absurdly expensive print cartridges unless I use refilled cartridges. But in the end it seemed like getting a new directly connected printer worked out much better for our needs.
ETA: The document feeder on the C6180 made scanning of photos that are glued into scrap books difficult because there isn't a flat surface for a large scrap book page to lie on.
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