G'day,

At Easter I chose a HP F4100 all in one printer/scanner for my parents when I was visiting them in VIC.

Unfortunately, somehow, they keep breaking it! When they try to print something, it simply doesn't print.

The cable is present, the printer is on, has paper and ink... iMac G4 running 10.4.11...

They had a guy visit and fix it last week ($20), and it worked again... but now suddenly it's stopped again.

I got them to turn the printer off/on, restart the iMac... but no luck.

In System Profiler it says it is "Processing". In the HP software it says the computer is unable to talk to the printer, then makes a suggestion of what to do - EXCEPT that the stupid software developers didn't put a scroll bar in, so the suggestion runs off the page and cannot be read.

My mother is worried she "did it", by pressing the "Colour" button, but I fail to see how that could have done anything... She pressed the button after trying to print a photo from in iPhoto...

Anyone have any ideas on what is going wrong? Got a simple answer I can get them to try over the phone?

Thanks


cosmic


PS I just found the manual online, so will read up, but still appreciate any help if someone knows these machines...

Meh, never mind... I've just told my mum to take the bloody thing back to Dick Smith and get her money back.

For the 3rd time now it has suddenly decided to stop talking to the iMac. How bloody ridiculous!

Some may say Canons are for wankers, but I've never had a problem with them. Just need to find an "all in one" scanner/printer in the Canon line to suggest to her now.