hp 4250 with 68 Error

[prntrfxr]

Customer shipped me a 4250 with a note in the box that said "Defective Formatter". It printed fine to me. Needs a swing plate repair kit and fuser, but printout looks good. Event log shows 3 68 Errors, but I couldn't duplicate the problem. If you were me, would you replace the formatter anyway to cover your backside or repair what was bad and return it with no formatter problem found? I havent seen too many 68's on 4250's in the past and usually performing cold reset or worse case clearing nvram (last resort before replacing formatter) cleared the problem.

[blackcat4866]

Here's my philosophy on this subject:

Whenever I did ride-alongs to help diagnose some strange problem, I asked for symptoms only from the tech. It's too easy to to get steered off in the wrong direction by following someone else's faulty line of reasoning.

The times I got stumped were usually when I listened to the whole long story, and ended up in the same blind alley as the tech did.

I say, use your own brain. Make your own diagnosis. =^..^=

[prntrfxr]

I decided to send an estimate both ways and let the customer decide. If I replace it unnecessarily, it was his decision. If I dont and it comes back to haunt me, it was his decision. Ultimate blame is on HIM...I like that. Enpowers the customer and he feels good about getting to decide. I feel good cause I dont take the heat either way. WIN WIN ...wish they were all like that. Thanks for the advise blackcat. I did the same when it was a field tech situation. When it gets shipped to you though its a little dicey cause you never get to talk to the person that saw the problem and you often dont see the conditions that created the error in the first place.

[BrickPilot]

If only operators had a black box nailed to the back of their heads, then you could off load the data...."Ahhh, that's why". Till then it's a gamble if it's corrupt documents, host parallel port, network card/switch, signal cable or even an operator who wants it to fail so they don't have to work (yes I've been there). Then again maybe it is the formatter.

In the past I was (on an earlier model) lucky to be able to physically swap machines onsite and follow developments. It is a good thing to let the customer be a part of the choices as already said. In such situations I have put it to the customer "we can resolve this two ways; money, or time and patience"

I remember when a similar intermittant formatter error was invesigated on another brand. Turns out the cause was a boss who occasionally visited this site with his laptop. Simple in hindsight, but no one knew he had an identical IP for a different brand printer which he used at home. His clever teenage son did this for him to save him time not to change default printers. Turns out that a document formatted for duplexing apparently caused a formatter error. When my co-worker found this I believe I shed an internal organ bleeding with expletives.