Korean Job Discussion Forums

[JongnoGuru]

If you have a printer (and you do) then you'll have the occasional printer problem (and you will).

Some problems you can fix by yourself, sometimes with the printer's own software, sometimes with online or phone tech support from the manufacturer.

But sometimes none of that works, and it needs authorised repair or replacement. Great if it's still under warranty and free. Otherwise, you might be tempted to toss it and buy another, depending on how much the repair costs and how long it takes.

Or you might try this site: www.fixyourownprinter.com

They have quite extensive forums there for laser, inkjet, etc.

My most recent headache was the apparently quite common "pink ink syndrome", where black prints as black and all other colours print as red or pink or shades in between. No yellows, no blues. Again, a very common problem with inkjet printers.

I had tried everything but voodoo to fix that infernal problem, and was about to give up until Googling brought me to a thread on that site -- hundreds of HP inkjet users all grousing about the same problem I was having.

You won't find the solution anywhere on HP's website, and HP-Korea tech support doesn't know or aren't supposed to tell you, either. They were insistent that I would have to taekbae the printer (two printers, actually) to their A/S centre for a few days.

It's now fixed, I did it myself, and I saved the cost of more ink cartridges, repairs and, conceivably, another printer. (I mean, I was thaaaaat close to trash-canning our printers.)

My only regret is that I didn't consult (or even know about) www.fixyourownprinter.com at the first signs of trouble. The hours I wasted uninstalling & reinstalling drivers, priming & repriming printer nozzles, printing out countless tests, swapping cartridges (pointless), surfing massive HP websites, arsing around with HP Korea tech support...

[eamo]

I just bought a nice new HP photosmart printer so no doubt soon I will need that site.

I much prefer trying to fix my own stuff. It's the only way to be sure.

One other point on printers. The consumables are nose-bleedingly expensive!!

I paid 110,000 for the printer to find that only three ink cartridges would cost the same price as the printer!! They're 35,000 each! (Although I haven't shopped around much).

Now....when you consider that you get 3 ink cartridges with the new printer it would seem, give or take a few thousand won, just as cost-effective to buy a brand new printer each time the supplied cartridges run out!!! Stupid really.

Then there's the photo-quality paper. 20,000 won for 12 A4 sheets!!! I have a sneaky feeling there's a little price-inflation there.

[Peeping Tom]