HP say: Oops, we did it again !

[bonehead123]

More printer bricking news, lookie here:

Now HP printers are being bricked following firmware update

HP LaserJet printers are reportedly being blocked

www.techradar.com

So sad, from a company that USED to be "da bomb" where printers were concerned, especially their LaserJets from back in the day, of which I owned several...

 

[Bill_Bright]

At least this time it appears to be a bug since this bricking happened with genuine HP ink/toner too.

In reading through that article further, it seems Brother has been caught playing HP-like scams too. They deny it, but then that's how HP was too.

 

[QyInvoLing]

HP once send an Intel BIOS to AMD laptops in China. It's weird.

 

[bonehead123]

it seems Brother has been caught playing HP-like scams too. They deny it, but then that's how HP was too.

Well, I bought a Brother MFC Laser printer a few years ago & it's been rock solid from day 1. After the warranty expired, I switched to 3rd party toner, nottaproblemo...

There was 1 software update a while back that kept my pc from recognizing it, but I just reverted to the previous version from a back-up and kept right on printing....and now every time the update pops up as available, I just ignore it... I still don't know if they ever fixed whatever issue it had, and am not really interesting in finding out, since it still does everything I need nottaproblemo

Hopefully they will avoid the HP brick-da-crap plan and just concentrate on doing what's right for their customers/////

 

[remixedcat]

HP once send an Intel BIOS to AMD laptops in China. It's weird.

oyyy and they also take insydeh20 bios and delete like 60% or more of the options and then deploy that to laptops and desktops. even elitebook/probook line and some z series too. they got the worst bios and you gotta flash w custom to even get some hdd/ssd options and they always have those shitty whitelists on em.

and they paywall drivers for any enterprise products.

they really are so evil. and HP also means Hinge Problems too

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

HP has been garbage for SO LONG. Their "good" days of "good" printers is so far back in history it can drink. Why does anyone still buy this garbage?

 

[Bill_Bright]

HP has been garbage for SO LONG.

Why does anyone still buy this garbage?

That's nonsense. The company may be (okay, "is") garbage but they still make decent products. HOWEVER, like many companies, they make a wide range of products from dirt-cheap, disposable junk to high end quality stuff.

If you buy a $70 AiO printing device (I don't care what brand), you are going to get junk. If you "invest" more, you will get more and better.

It is the same with many products. Take PSUs, for example. If you buy a company's entry level budget supply, you likely will get junk. Buy their top tier models and you will get a quality supply.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

That's nonsense. The company may be (okay, "is") garbage but they still make decent products. HOWEVER, like many companies, they make a wide range of products from dirt-cheap, disposable junk to high end quality stuff.

If you buy a $70 AiO printing device (I don't care what brand), you are going to get junk. If you "invest" more, you will get more and better.

It is the same with many products. Take PSUs, for example. If you buy a company's entry level budget supply, you likely will get junk. Buy their top tier models and you will get a quality supply.

Their 3-400 printers are still plagued by awful software, DRM, and poor reliability. Same with their $5000 poster maker printers we buy at work. Absolute shit. Then you get $1000 "business" laptops with plastic frames and overheating CPUs and garbo panels straight out of 2005.

HP's "garbage" to "good" ratio is actually atrocious.

 

[Bill_Bright]

If you can name a company that makes 100s of products and every single model is the cream of the crop, then your biased opinion would be based on sound evidence. But right now, you are just cherry picking anecdotal examples that are exceptions, not the norm and trying to use those exceptions to prove a company's entire line of products is junk. No! That's nonsense.

To be sure, I am not saying all HP products walk on water. But I am saying that not all of them are duds either - despite your personal, clearly biased, feelings against them.

There definitely are some Epson, Canon, Lexmark, even Brother products that should be avoided too. Does HP have more? Probably, but then they produce more models than all the others too - maybe even combined.

Bottom line? Prospective buyers need to do their homework and research specific model numbers before buying.

 

[AsRock]

Louis Rossman covered HP many times over the years how shady they are.

 

[eidairaman1]

Well, I bought a Brother MFC Laser printer a few years ago & it's been rock solid from day 1. After the warranty expired, I switched to 3rd party toner, nottaproblemo...

There was 1 software update a while back that kept my pc from recognizing it, but I just reverted to the previous version from a back-up and kept right on printing....and now every time the update pops up as available, I just ignore it... I still don't know if they ever fixed whatever issue it had, and am not really interesting in finding out, since it still does everything I need nottaproblemo

Hopefully they will avoid the HP brick-da-crap plan and just concentrate on doing what's right for their customers/////

Brother recently went anticonsumerist

Louis Rossman covered HP many times over the years how shady they are.

He blew brother up as well.

 

[xrobwx71]

If you are looking for a workhorse, that simply works? The HP LaserJet Pro M401dn. They are pricey up front but trouble-free as far as printers go with the occasional jam and such.
We opened our store in 2013 and bought 4 for customer invoice printing. They each print roughly 150+ pages a day, 6 days a week.
I buy toner (The XLarge version) on eBay by the 20 pack. We end up paying $11.75 per cartridge with 1 or 2 duds per 20.

I've only had to replace one printer due to lightning, and another I bought, and installed a rebuild kit.

We even have a shop cat that occasionally lays on top of them. I have to vacuum out sand from time to time.

​

 

[leonavis]

 

[bonehead123]

If you are looking for a workhorse, that simply works? The HP LaserJet Pro M401dn. They are pricey up front but trouble-free as far as printers go with the occasional jam and such.
We opened our store in 2013 and bought 4 for customer invoice printing. They each print roughly 150+ pages a day, 6 days a week.
I buy toner (The XLarge version) on eBay by the 20 pack. We end up paying $11.75 per cartridge with 1 or 2 duds per 20.

I've only had to replace one printer due to lightning, and another I bought, and installed a rebuild kit.

We even have a shop cat that occasionally lays on top of them. I have to vacuum out sand from time to time.

View attachment 390109

​

That face is worth more than all the printers on the planet combined....simply adorable

 

[eidairaman1]

What about Lexmark?

 

[Wirko]

We even have a shop cat that occasionally lays on top of them. I have to vacuum out sand from time to time.

Are cats known to be attracted to sources of ozone?

That face is worth more than all the printers on the planet combined....simply adorable

Hey you human, yes I'm looking at you, go print some invoices, and they better be long invoices, because today my bed is not as warm as it should be.

 

[lexluthermiester]

This is why connecting a printer to the internet is a bad idea. Same with allowing the HP driver suite access to the internet.

 

[Magic Cube]

At work my experience is that HP printers are always on DO NOT BUY-list. If you buy, do not connect them to internet. We have couple older black and white HP laser printers which are about 10 years old and they still work->no firmware upgrades. These don't care if it has HP or 3rd party cartridges.

We had one HP M479FDN which stopped working, because HP's firmware. It would not boot most of times and when it did, it would just freezed on idle. Only way to fix it was search old enough firmware before this "3rd party cartridges are bad thing" and flash it. This printer always had official toner cartridges.

Also official toner's for M497FDN laser printer are expensive->buying every color and black costs more than printer itself. And those cartridges aren't even the big ones(6000 pages). Printer itself costs 600€(inc. vat). When buying cartridges-> 2100 pages cartridge 170€ per color, 2400 pages black cartridge 130€, so 170€ x 3 +130€=640€. Prices where taken from Inkclub-webstore. There seems to be couple cheaper stores. But this printer is no more at my workplace->it is too expensive compared to Inktank products.

 

[Hyderz]

i've never owned a hp printer but heard many horror stories from friends and family.... so i know what to avoid from early on.
I have been using brother and canon printer and they have been solid but im in the market to buy a new color laser printer and i think i'm gonna try samsung.

 

[InVasMani]

I hate dealing with prints. Unless you print with them somewhat frequently it's always trouble shooting nightmare when finally do need to use it again. Oops so sorry that new cartridge you filled the last time is now empty again from that second usage getting that head nozzle to actually print right again. You spend more money on the ink replacement than you get back in rebates that are about the only thing you probably use them unless your in school or just enjoy wasting ink and paper along with your money.

 

[Wirko]

I bought a HP LaserJet Tank MFP 2604dw a month ago. The refill (type 153A, 153X) appears to be nothing more than a dumb bag of black powder. I can't know for sure but Aliexpress not selling replacement chips is a good sign. Will find out around 2029 when the tank is empty, if the printer lasts that long.

As an useless curiosity, previous HP "Neverstop" printers allowed toner refilling while printing. Mine requires the output tray to be lifted.

Is there some general advice on how to find all the driver DLLs that need to be isolated from the network?

I hate dealing with prints. Unless you print with them somewhat frequently it's always trouble shooting nightmare when finally do need to use it again. Oops so sorry that new cartridge you filled the last time is now empty again from that second usage getting that head nozzle to actually print right again. You spend more money on the ink replacement than you get back in rebates that are about the only thing you probably use them unless your in school or just enjoy wasting ink and paper along with your money.

That's inkjets, not lasers. You just need to print a small amount of colour graphics once a month (not just text because text printing doesn't necessarily use all the nozzles in the print head). If that's not enough then once a week is. My experience with HP inkjet printers has only been bad when I forgot to do that. Hey, you can use the task scheduler to open some document every Sunday afternoon and send it to the printer.

 

[Caring1]

Last time I bought a HP printer, it wouldn't let me do anything until I created an online account, so it went right back to the shop and I demanded a refund.

 

[Wirko]

Last time I bought a HP printer, it wouldn't let me do anything until I created an online account, so it went right back to the shop and I demanded a refund.

If HP could turn back time, they would create the 200A oscillator again, call it 200Ae, and make it operate on a clockwork mechanism, so you'd have to call a HP employee twice a month to wind it up.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I hate dealing with prints. Unless you print with them somewhat frequently it's always trouble shooting nightmare when finally do need to use it again. Oops so sorry that new cartridge you filled the last time is now empty again from that second usage getting that head nozzle to actually print right again. You spend more money on the ink replacement than you get back in rebates that are about the only thing you probably use them unless your in school or just enjoy wasting ink and paper along with your money.

You get what you pay for. Buy laser printers and most(if not all) of the problems go away.

 

[Bill_Bright]

This is why connecting a printer to the internet is a bad idea. Same with allowing the HP driver suite access to the internet.

Agree on both points. But I'll go one step further. Don't even install the HP driver/software suite. Odds are, Windows already knows how to communicate with your printer just fine without their software or driver package. But if not, with most, if not all HP printers, and with most other brands, the makers maintain a "drivers only" download on your device's webpage you can use to get the printer working.

I also make sure I buy a "network ready" printing device that has some sort of built-in, integrated network access feature. HP (at least on my AiO) calls theirs EWS (embedded Web server). This allows me to simply use my browser to log into my printer (using its IP address) and have full menu control over everything. I can even scan documents and send or receive faxes from my computer too. I can check ink levels, set the date & time.

I take it back. I cannot do everything. I cannot send or receive print jobs to or from HP's cloud service because I follow Lex's two rules above. My device has local "network" access, not Internet access.