Computer and Printer Tech Support

[Fibbles]

A friend of my moms called (and is emailing) frantically. She claims her printers (an all-in-one HP FAX, Scanner, Printer - no info on model #) lights flashed and then it ejected all of the paper in the tray, then it beeped and seemingly died. She then pulled the plug, waited five minutes and turned it on, and it worked for a few minutes and died again. Now it's not working.

Does anyone know what's wrong and/or how to fix it?

Part two is something I thought I fixed, but apparently not. First she claimed her speakers weren't working, but when I visited all I did was turn them on and they mysteriously worked fine. She then said warnings saying "Low Memory" and "low disk space" kept popping up, but ewhen I did all the things she claimed to make them appear on, nothing happened. This time, she's sayign that's happening and it's freezing her computer, but there's NO WAY I'm going over the check myself. If the messages are real, what's causing them?

She seemingly can't be bothered to call Tech Support for the HP, don't ask why, she just won't. She told me her uncle said that the printer problem is common, so when I asked her to ask her uncle to fix it, she told me I was being a smartass :angry: (eh?) I tried to get a friend (an IT/Hardware guy) to visit, but he really doesn't want to, even when she offered $$.

[Starbuck3733T]

Tech support to the residents of my buildings: sure.

Tech support to family and friends: maybe

Tech support to others: oh hell no.

[Fibbles]

My glasses broke.

I want contacts.

My great aunt wants to live with me forever. She likes to remind me that she's blind, but after watching her for a week, I know she can see and uses the blindness as a crutch and attention grabber.

[fillip]

My glasses broke.

I want contacts.

My great aunt wants to live with me forever. She likes to remind me that she's blind, but after watching her for a week, I know she can see and uses the blindness as a crutch and attention grabber.
Crikey, you really are having a crappy weekend aren't ya.

I used to love playing the 'PC tech' but it gets annoying as hell after a while and i'm now loath to even help friends build their own comps - mainly because I know they'll come to me first if something goes belly up. Tbh, i'm reluctant to do it for my family and g/f too.

[fivecheebs]

Tbh, i'm reluctant to do it for my family and g/f too.
A tall misterious(sp?) man enters the room, heavy chains rattle against the floor as he moves, his breath lingers in the air as a cloud of steam, in a spine chilling voice he says "I am the ghost of christmas past"

;) :p

[fillip]

A tall misterious(sp?) man enters the room, heavy chains rattle against the floor as he moves, his breath lingers in the air as a cloud of steam, in a spine chilling voice he says "I am the ghost of christmas past"

;) :p:mellow:

it's because I don't want the hassle when it all goes wrong and also because i'll get the blame for it all going wrong, even if it was the crappy generic memory's fault, ok?

:p

[fivecheebs]

LMAO ... i do understand ... really i do. was just friendly banter mate ;)

Ive been there, now i do it as a business, out of work hours, and its starting to pick up. Since i started my business ive had alot more patience for other peoples problems, i guess i am more acustomed to dealing with other peoples PCs but i have never charged friends of family. Of course when it comes to thier friends or family thats a different matter ... but my customers seem to keep coming back so i must be doing something right.

[fillip]

Ive been there, now i do it as a business, out of work hours, and its starting to pick up. Since i started my business ive had alot more patience for other peoples problems, i guess i am more acustomed to dealing with other peoples PCs but i have never charged friends of family. Of course when it comes to thier friends or family thats a different matter ... but my customers seem to keep coming back so i must be doing something right.
I'd never charge friends or family for the owrk but i'd only do it now if I was specifically asked and they're were in a fix. Previously I'd volunteer but no longer.

I've considered building/maintenance as a side project before, I've even been tempted by doing custom builds for people, but thats the kind of thing you would require a portfolio of previous work for - and I don't currently have that even though i'm confident I have the ideas.
I'm gonna consider selling w/c gear when I move to Brisbane since there's a distinct lack of small bore w/c equipment over there and it'll give me something else to do while I'm doing my Masters, it'd also be interesting to see if the 1/2" market can be cracked - though looking at the way some of the A.C. gear is being butchered for 1/2" system over in the U.S. i'm not sure its possible.

[Fibbles]

Well, I'm pretty sure I've found the source of the low memory problems. She relies on aol's anti virus and spam blocker to filter out all the 'bad' stuff. Ad Aware and Spybot both return lots of results, and they keep finding new stuff after she deletes the old, looks like a spyware infestation. This lady also clicks on those blasted 'you've won money or items' ads that pop up all the time. There are around a dozen (seriously) shareware programs always active in the background. I don't think she understands what any of this stuff is, yet she keeps on clicking.

I bought a cheap kit for fixing glasses. It cmae with a screw that fit perfectly into the right frame area. Now I just have to wait a month and I'm gonna be wearing contacts again. I wish I didn't mysteriously stop using them 8 years ago (I can't remember why, but I just switched back to glasses one day when I was 19 and didnt bother again :huh: ).

Dell is having a 30% off sale. Buy that desktop for parts or a laptop now!!!

[Starbuck3733T]

Nuke that machine ASAP fibbles. probably compromised in more ways than one. The printer sounds like its probably only gonna be good for parts for other fun projects - replace it. repairing an hp product that's less than <5K is usually very, very expensive.

[Fibbles]

Nuke that machine ASAP fibbles. probably compromised in more ways than one. The printer sounds like its probably only gonna be good for parts for other fun projects - replace it. repairing an hp product that's less than <5K is usually very, very expensive.
The machine used to be mine too, I 'traded' it for a crappy AMD 1GHz 5gb hard drive POS. It was an SFF with a 2.6GHz P4, 1 gig of PC2700, an 80gig hard drive and whatever else (my LAN box), and then agreed to help her maintain it (don't ask why - the next time this happens, I will run far away).

She didn't send another email, but I'm not going to her house for another attention grabbing scam again. I'd love to nuke it, nuke them both... the printer and computer :angry: