Are all service centers worth :shit: if I use Win98?
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In my family we have a tendency to keep using half-broken devices and stuff for years, and never having anything fixed, because my father, the head of the family, insists that service centers and repairmen do not care about fixing your and will almost always return it in a worse state than it was.
Examples:
- A HP Deskjet 560C printer, purchased in ~1994, the paper feeder crapped out some years later, and he still uses it by manually feeding it each sheet of paper.
- A HP 530 notebook running Vista. The screen got weirdly shifted, like this image:
My mother has translated several books on this notebook since the screen crapped out. - Wall taps that have been dripping for decades.
- We cannot let our dogs roam our huge garden because the garden fences are full of holes.
- Holes in the wall where there was a burst pipe 10 years ago, because he took out some bricks, replaced the pipe, and called it a day.
Etc.
In your experience, are all service centers and repairmen mostly always doing a shitty job?
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I think your dad's doing a shitty job.
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- Wall taps that have been dripping for decades.- We cannot let our dogs roam our huge garden because the garden fences are full of holes.- Holes in the wall where there was a burst pipe 10 years ago, because he took out some bricks, replaced the pipe, and called it a day.
It sounds to me like your dad is the one doing the shitty job. Your family needs to find a good handyman. Yes, good ones do exist.
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It sounds to me like your dad is the one doing the shitty job. Your family needs to find a good handyman. Yes, good ones do exist.
You misogynist! Good handywomen exist, too! :P
My wife's aunt is a handyperson, and she's better than many handymen I've encountered.
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This post is deleted!
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Diving back in to this:
Wall taps that have been dripping for decades.
This is likely a 5 minute fix. Shut off the water to the house, remove the face of the spigot (you say wall tap, I assume you mean an outside spigot?), replace the sealing washer. You can pick up an assortment of faucet washers on Amazon for less than $10 that will include all common sizes.
We cannot let our dogs roam our huge garden because the garden fences are full of holes.
Fence boards are under $2/per, if it is a wooden fence. A few hours and under $100 will fix a fuckload of holes. If it is mesh fencing, a roll of 10ga galvanized wire and a set of dykes or fence pliers and you can fix all of that by patching it back together. It may not be pretty, but you can keep the dogs in the yard.
Fixing the fence is also a hell of a lot less work than watching the dogs like a hawk every time you let them outside.
Holes in the wall where there was a burst pipe 10 years ago, because he took out some bricks, replaced the pipe, and called it a day.
Call a mason. Masons are usually very good at their jobs, or else they would not have one. If it is in a basement or somewhere, get some mortar and patch it back together for practice. A bag of mortar mix is $16. You can't make it any worse than it is right now, and depending on the size of the hole it should not take more than a couple of hours.
It sounds like you could fix all of this for less than $200 and in less than a weekend.
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- A HP Deskjet 560C printer, purchased in ~1994, the paper feeder crapped out some years later, and he still uses it by manually feeding it each sheet of paper.
I did that for a while with a Brother 2040 laser printer. Until the toner ran out - it's now in the stack-o-crap that needs to be recycled.
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My wife's aunt is a handyperson, and she's better than many handymen I've encountered.
Are you sure she isn't trans-handy?
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You misogynist! Good handywomen exist, too!
Handy person.
My wife's aunt is a handyperson, and she's better than many handymen I've encountered.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know a lot of women that are very capable also. You know I meant that in the generic, and not gender or sex specific. ;)
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I used that wording because raisins. I wanted to give the SJWs something else to get upset about.
"These pliers are homophobic!!"
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Handy person.
Keep reading. ;)
You know I meant that in the generic, and not gender or sex specific.
Yeah, but I couldn't help myself.
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"These pliers are homophobic!!"
Oh. I thought you were trying to keep the water out of the garden. Better stick your finger in that hole boy!
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Better stick your finger in that hole boy!
That's what she said!
Hey, it's been 15 minutes. Somebody had to say it, so it might as well be me.
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In your experience, are all service centers and repairmen mostly always doing a shitty job?
Nope.
Especially tech wise - at the worst, you end up with a computer returned with a wiped drive and the same problem, but usually they'll send a replacement if they can't fix it. I've never had something returned in worse shape than when I sent it. And if I did, I'd send it right back and keep doing it till they got it right.
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Especially tech wise - at the worst, you end up with a computer returned with a wiped drive and the same problem, but usually they'll send a replacement if they can't fix it. I've never had something returned in worse shape than when I sent it. And if I did, I'd send it right back and keep doing it till they got it right.
So, I can tell you have never had to deal with HP tech support...
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So, I can tell you have never had to deal with HP tech support...
That's correct. I generally stay clear of HP because... well... I've heard things. Terrible things.
We do have HP printers though. They've been suprisingly un-crappy.
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That's correct. I generally stay clear of HP because... well... I've heard things. Terrible things.
Good man.
We do have HP printers though. They've been suprisingly un-crappy.
A client of ours has a new printer that has had the formatter board replaced 3 times now and it still shits itself pretty regularly. We no longer recommend any HP products.
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A client of ours has a new printer that has had the formatter board replaced 3 times now and it still shits itself pretty regularly. We no longer recommend any HP products.
Ouch. Yeah, I've got a couple older HP printers that seem to be pretty good. The newer stuff seems to be where the biggest failure is.
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I've got a couple older HP printers that seem to be pretty good.
They were.
The newer stuff seems to be where the biggest failure is.
They are utter shit. No need to mince words around here. Just say what is on your mind. ;)
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@sloosecannon said:
I've got a couple older HP printers that seem to be pretty good.
They were.
The newer stuff seems to be where the biggest failure is.
They are utter shit. No need to mince words around here. Just say what is on your mind. ;)
Eh, no personal experience. But I'll take your word on it :)
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older HP printers that seem to be pretty good.
QFT.
I have a LaserJet 4600 series where the only thing wrong is that the kids broke the Tray1's hooks so it hangs slightly ajar. Other than that (and the $400 price tag for a set of new toner cartridges), it's been pretty solid.
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$400 price tag for a set of new toner cartridges
How long do they last?
I've got... a LaserJet 2015dn and an OfficeJet Pro 8600 Plus.
pictures would go here but discourse is taking forever to upload so fukkit nvm
The OfficeJet is a little iffy sometimes (it likes to just disconnect from the network and not work sometimes), but that's why I have 2 printers (I generally like to have at least 2, because you know that your printer will stop working when you most need it...)The LaserJet has been solid though.
We only got the OfficeJet cause our older printer (no idea what model) was lost to lightning... along with a power supply, modem, and some other stuff
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How long do they last?
Considering the volume the printer handles, I can usually stretch it at least half a year or so, until someone decides they need to send people books of things they should have received in their email...
The OfficeJet is a little iffy sometimes (it likes to just disconnect from the network and not work sometimes), but that's why I have 2 printers (I generally like to have at least 2, because you know that your printer will stop working when you most need it...)
This.
Actually, the LaserJet is the backup for the newer HP model (that's faster, but tends to do weird things).lost to lightning
That sucks. I wonder how good the power strip is on it. Sure it has a dinky little "reset" button, but do they work? And how do you even test that?
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he OfficeJet is a little iffy sometimes (it likes to just disconnect from the network and not work sometimes),
Older HPs had a separate card that connected it to the network, that is the likely cause of that issue. You can pick them up on eBay for dirt cheap. I would give you 10-1 odds that is the cause of the disconnections and it is a super easy fix.
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Older HPs had a separate card that connected it to the network
I always wondered why that was removable.
Heck, I wondered why it needs a Hard Drive, but someone in a black suit came in and told me not to question it.
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Heck, I wondered why it needs a Hard Drive, but someone in a black suit came in and told me not to question it.
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We do have HP printers though. They've been suprisingly un-crappy.
A friend has an HP printer. It has a nice habit of saying "oh you ran out of paper in the middle of that job? Well, fuck you." Other than that, it's been pretty reliable (considering the conditions we run it in - outside at dog shows).
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Couldn't have been him, you wouldn't remember.
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you ran out of paper in the middle of that job?
Oh yeah! Reminds me of the other problem for that HP printer: Ours considers "Out of paper" to be "Paper Jam". No idea why...
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Not if he didn't flashy thing him.
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@Polygeekery said:
Not if he didn't
flashy thingneuralizeneuralyzer him.FTFY
FTFTFY
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Not really? Does a computer "computer things"? I just verbed the noun.
I am full of useless information.
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@wikipedia said:
If there are more witnesses to neuralyze, or if they are pressed for time, a special team is sent in to supply memories.
Okay, so I misspelled it.Not if he didn't
flashy thingneuralyze him.RFTFY
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So, I can tell you have never had to deal with HP tech support...
Hey, even I, who sent my laptop out 3 times to get fixed, never got it back in worse shape than when I sent it.
The same shape, i.e., distinctly not fixed, but at least they didn't break anything else.
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Heck, I wondered why it needs a Hard Drive, but someone in a black suit came in and told me not to question it.
Spooling multiple jobs, usually. RAM's a hell of a lot more costly per meg.
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I am full of useless information.
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Additionally I've printed single pages made out of 20gb of Postscript.
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Spooling multiple jobs, usually.
Ah. So that's why MS has installed a Print Spooler on each version of the OS since, like, Windows 3.1. Those dumb computers, trying to take the jobs of PCs!
Additionally I've printed single pages made out of 20gb of Postscript.
Were those pages football fields, or were you printing microfiche?
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So that's why MS has installed a Print Spooler on each version of the OS since, like, Windows 3.1.
You know there's other OSes out there, right? And again, disk is cheaper than RAM. Yes, probably even when Windows 3.1 came out.
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Were those pages football fields, or were you printing microfiche?
In 1989 I had a ~1MB ps file that generated a picture of the TNG Enterprise. It took your average PS printer of the day an entire hour to process.
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Hey, even I, who sent my laptop out 3 times to get fixed, never got it back in worse shape than when I sent it.
The same shape, i.e., distinctly not fixed, but at least they didn't break anything else.
The printer I mentioned earlier, it would randomly drop off the network and require a reboot. Sometimes two.
I call HP, jump through all of their fucking hoops, etc. They finally agree to send a tech out to look at it. He comes, without a formatter board. I specifically told them it needed a formatter board. He just shows up, resets everything on the fucking printer and leaves. So, it was useless until I could get someone out there to reset the static IP address.
Second time he comes, he replaces the formatter board and leaves with it completely and utterly broken. Would. Not. Boot.
Let me repeat that for clarity: He came out to fix something that was mostly working but needed rebooting 2-3 times a week and left with it not working at all. The formatter board he brought did not work.
So...why didn't he put back in the old formatter board you ask? That is a very good question, but a question that I do not have an answer for.
A couple of days later he shows back up, puts in formatter board #2, we go configure it and now it disconnects once a day or so. It went from shitting itself every 2-4 days to pretty much once a day.
We have asked for them to swap out the entire printer. They say they need approval for that and they want to try one more formatter board. They never make appointments, they just show up and swap out shit and leave without even setting the IP address back so that shit will work. They test it on USB and say, "Well, it is working now" even though it is connected to the network.
I hate HP. Their products are shit.
Same client, we installed some new HP workstations for them a while back, two out of 6 machines had the CPU fans die in the first week.
I could go on, but I need to go to Costco.
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Hyper complicated vector graphics scaled down to an 8.5x11 sheet. Was quicker to let the printer rasterize it to 600dpi than to do it in software.
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Hey, even I, who sent my laptop out 3 times to get fixed, never got it back in worse shape than when I sent it.
I had a Motorola phone years ago that I sent off for repair. It came back with several keys missing and a big "QC Failed" note on top. I was not happy
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Masons are usually very good at their jobs, or else they would not have one.
Could it be that I'm in Hungary? Here the situation seems to be that all masons, painters, pipe mechanics, electricians etc. etc. are all crappy at their jobs, or else they would not have one because all the other crappy ones do the job for le$$ (though still too much), and by the time the average customer notices the crappiness, the guy cannot even be found.
Also here the norm is not asking for a bill because the handypeople ask less if they don't have to pay taxes.