Today is another really good example of why 25% of my time is (and has always been) wasted fixing IT problems that I shouldn’t have to. I just got an HP C7280 All In One Printer (£199 from PCWorld) which is a wireless printer/scanner/copier/Fax.
So first I unpacked it, and uncharacteristically, read the Start Here guide. Except when I got to point 3 it diverged from reality. Supposedly I could choose my language from the menu on the built-in display. What the display actually said was 12345. So what do i do now, I pressed 1,2,3,4,5 but to no avail. I turned the printer on and off a few times. Stubbornly the message never changed. I checked the documents for any mention of this problem but no luck.
Finally, after some searching through the HP support site I found this solution;
- Pull the power cable out whilst the printer is on
- Next, with the cable disconnected, hold the power button down for 10 seconds
- Next, hold down # and 6 keys together and keep them held down whilst powering on and don’t release until it eventually gets to the menu talked about in the guide to select your language.
Basically that little proceedure resets the printer back to defualt setting. But, I shouldn’t have to do that! Its brand new, it should work out of the box. A non-IT literate person would have returned the printer as faulty.
At least its working now….
