How the HP 2575 Made Me Want to Crash My Car Into Staples
Since I got my new computer a few months ago, I haven’t had a printer. My new Dell PC doesn’t have a printer port. Just the massive amount of USB 2.0 ports to connect all your peripherals and input devices. There are workarounds. I could have installed a printer port in the PC, or I could have gotten a “Printer Port to USB Connector” which I have seen around the Internet, but I decided that my Brother printer was done. It is old, huge, ugly and does only one thing. Print.
I picked out this machine, decided to buy it and that is when things started going down hill quickly. As I was walking up to the register, the salesman informed me that I would need to buy a USB cable. Now, can someone tell me why HP wouldn’t include all the cables you need to connect the printer to your computer? Is this to cater to the market of people who just want to use it as a standalone device printing from their memory cards, digital cameras and making ultra slow copies? Nope. Couldn’t possibly be that. They must be trying to cut whatever costs possible in order to keep that sticker shock under control. What it is, is annoying.
OK. I will put in the CD.
I put in the CD and hit the install buttons and get it all set up to go. Then a window opens up with two status bars telling me at what percentage the install process is. The top one appears to be downloading additional pieces and parts to install on my PC. “OK” I thought, “This isn’t really anything out of the ordinary nowadays.” Then, I glanced to the right to see a number and then KBps which will tell me how “quickly” the software is downloading from HP. 6.5 KBps. There is no way that that is going to work for me. Too slow. I have a cable modem, so I loaded up HP’s website and saw that there were a couple different download options, so I played it safe and downloaded both. I ran the larger file and it did some unpacking of some kind and then nothing happened. It didn’t give me an install prompt after unpacking those files. The other program brought up the downloading applet again.
What I did notice while I had the HP install program open, was that the incredibly slow download rate started to speed up when I was downloading the files from HP’s server. For whatever reason, if I opened up the pipes to HP to get those files from HP’s FTP server, then the download manager started showing a better rate of download. So for the rest of last night, I was continually over-writing those same huge files and re-downloading them in hopes of getting the HP install program to finish downloading the files that my computer needed so that I could use this infernal “all-in-one” 2575 printer/scanner machine.
As of 11 pm I had nothing to report. Nothing but baby steps had been taken. As any good computer guy who has downloaded large files from the Internet can tell you, the only thing to do is to let it work over night while you are sleeping. Surely, no matter what monumental task your computer needs to complete, it will be able to finish it over the course of your nightly snooze-fest.
I woke up this morning to nothing but my own impending rage as the status bar hadn’t moved an inch and the program had stopped downloading the ginormous file that it started the night before.
Mom, if you are still reading this, please click away.
FUCK HP. FUCK THEM RIGHT IN THEIR COLLECTIVE EAR.
I did all I could to keep from exploding. I tried work-arounds. I tried creative solutions. NONE OF THEM WORKED. MAYBE YOU SHOULD JUST BURN A COUPLE MORE CD’S AND GIVE ME ALL I NEED TO RUN YOUR STUPID PRODUCT WHEN I PAY GOOD MONEY TO BRING IT INTO MY HOME!
FTWAHSDF:KLJLKJDFS
OK, I feel a little bit better now. And just so you know I have grown up a little bit in the last ten years, I will not take this out on the Staples employees. They are not at fault here. I know this. I am going to tell them how badly HP sucks, but I will not attack them.
So, does anyone have a recommendation for which company I should go with other than HP?
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21 Responses to “How the HP 2575 Made Me Want to Crash My Car Into Staples”
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I have always had good luck with HP products, and now prefer them over Dell.
For God’s sake, don’t go to Lexmark!
Epson is OK… but I have to say I use nothing but HP printers at work and despite the occasional need for a patch, they run like champs.
For a small fee plus airfare, I will take the printer to HP headquarters and forcably insert it into the president’s anus.
HP is the devil. I have one of their printers and IT is just fine for my needs. The part that I HATE is all of the peripheral stuff they sneak in when they install your drivers. I always get supid HP popups no matter how many times I only download the necessary files or tell it not to update,warn me,check things, etc. It slows my computer tremendously. So, I ended up uninstalling it and now the printer sits there in case of a printer emergency.
i have the Epson CX 4200 and i’m afraid to tell you it required me to purchase a separate USB cable too. apparently, that’s not out of the ordinary nowadays.
my laptop’s an hp & i love it, but i haven’t had any experience w/their printers.
This is a test to see if Craig’s fascist blog software will finally let one of my sweet, sweet comments through.
(HP is the Debbil.)
If any of you were getting comments denied, I have put all my regulars on the commenting safelist so that they are not going to be moderated. It is doing a good job of keeping spam out, but I want all of you to show up here!
HP Sucks….I prefer Compaq much more.
ok, i’ll bite deezo. you know HP & Compaq are the same company now right?
I have a Cannon that I got on the cheap (previously opened) at Best Buy years ago, and I love love love it. Cheap ink cartridges that last a long time if you don’t print daily, relatively quick printing, and easy to install. My only gripe was that I, too, had to buy a USB cable to hook it up. Sadly, though, it’s not one of your fancy all-in-one machines, so they may not offer the kind of thing you’re looking for.
I forgot the tag my bad…
sarcasm tag…
Your language is disgusting! I recently purchased a Canon Pixma (all-in-one) at Staples and it works beautifully and was installed very quickly. You should have checked with mom on this one because mom checked Consumer Reports.
I stopped reading as soon as it said “All-In-One”. Hope that works out for you.
I too have the HP 2575 All-in-One. It seemed to work fine at first, but after about a week of use, I began to get those extremely annoying “can’t detect scanner” messages. I found that if I leave the printer on while booting up my PC (also an HP), the system simply cannot detect the scanner function of the printer. The printer must be shut off and turned on only after the system has completely booted. Whatever. I suppose I can live with that minor inconvenience. There is supposedly a “hotfix” available, but you can only obtain it from Windows and it may cost a few bucks since you have to contact Windows Help directly. Sucks big weenies as far as I’m concerned. I’ve had this printer for couple of months now and some other issues have decided to rear their ugly heads. I’m now unable to access half the “extras” that were supposed to be installed from the CD (such as HP Image Zone, Image Transfer, etc.) I actually like the basic functions of the printer. It copies, prints and scans quite well. I just wish all the fancy doo-dads and goodies worked properly. I’m definitely keeping the damn thing…now I just have to figure out how to correct the software errors. Wish me luck!
“Now, can someone tell me why HP wouldn’t include all the cables you need to connect the printer to your computer?”
this is a network printer. your supposed to plug into your network with one of those cat-5 cables or whatever (which is supplied). the usb cable isnt included because not many people buy this printer to plug directly into their computer.
this printer shouldnt be connected directly to your computer or your wasting your money.
Hello, I was curious - why is it you ignored the setup poster that came with the device that instructed you to install the software prior to plugging in the device??? Just curious - cause the software will prompt for updates if necessary after the installation… Most peculiar you are -
this person is pretty juvenile (based on his language), and his computer savvy seems low (e.g., paying the extra for a networkable printer when all he wanted was usb; thinking he might be able to install without loading cd-based drivers; being unable to do an efficient download from hp; and being pc and windows rather than mac and osx based). he probably runs with scissors too. hp isn’t perfect, but i’m satisfied with my last two hp printers (currently, a photosmart 2610 all in one). if hp really is a bad vendor, their products will sink out of sight. but i doubt the premise and don’t see it happening in the marketplace. could it be………operator error?
I had 7 HP computers, purchased approx. 1995 or so. Great little rigs, never a problem…soooooo…when it was time to upgrade in 2003 (a little late, I know), of course I bought HP products.
I bought 4 HP desktops (incl. an HP Media Center for my house), an HP4600DTN (double sided, very fast, color) laser printer, an HP fax machine and about $2,000.00 worth of laser cartridges.
Total cost, about 10 or 12 grand if I recall.
Over the next 5 months I spent over $48,000.00 in laser cartridges (yes…I did say $48,000.00).
I did a lot of printing (as if that wasn’t obvious).
I should have bought about $26,000.00 worth of cartridges, but the thing was a dud, it was constantly jamming and that of course ebded up causing a lot of tossed printing.
I spent close to $2,000.00 in local repairs because HP didn’t know why it wasn’t working and said the warranty didn’t cover my issues. Now, this was with a 30 day old purchase!
Within 60 days my brand new HP Media center computer had been in the repair shop more often than it had been at my home.
I sent a letter to HP extolling how I’d been a happy customer for 10 years but I was at best frustrated and I needed them to stand up to this issue and replace my computer and this printer.
No response.
A month later the fax machine died.
I then sent a letter to then President of HP Carly Fiorino (sp?) explaining everything once again, demanding that they replace my equipment.
30 days went by, no response. I was just getting ready to send another letter, when I got a phone call…”We want to take care of this right away…I can’t believe no one has contacted you!!!”
(Neither could I).
A month went by…nothing.
Time for another letter I should think.
This time I sent copies of both previous letters, plus a new one…to every single computer magazine publisher in North America, the Wall Street Journal, my local paper, Michael Dell, the President of Gateway Computers, IBM, and Acer Computers among others.
All in all I sent out over 75 packages.
Interestingly within days I had a phone call from darn near everyone EXCEPT HP.
Eventually HP’s “atonement” crew called me and expressed amazement that this hadn’t been resolved.
I was equally amazed.
They then proceded to explain to me that a brand new HP4650 DTN was on its way as a replacement for the failed printer as well as a brand new HP Media Center computer would be on it’s way and they were “going to pay to have a technician come in, do all your transfers for you and re-hook you up to your network”.
The printer arrived 9 weeks later.
I’m still waiting for the computer.
That was 2 years ago.
Sadly, because I was of the (errant) opinion that HP had simply made a few bad devices, and even though my frustration had been immense during this process, I felt renewed confidence in HP’s products and decided to upgrade my media center for my home.
The repair place had replaced the original computers power supply 3 times, it hadn’t failed for almost 3 months by that time, so I opted to buy a brand new unit for my house and put the old one at the office for a use that wasn’t important, should we lose the devices ability through failure.
So, off I go to COMP USA to buy another one.
January of 2005.
I bought everything they made for that thing at the time. It was around $2,700.00 or so. I believe the same computer goes for just under $900.00 today.
Shortly after I bought the thing, I had to do extensive traveling and was gone for almost 6 weeks.
The new computer started acting up the minute I got back. Knowing I didn’t want to go through all this all over again…undoing the chords, repacking everything up in a box, etc., I opted to do all the phone calls, and try to fix it in house (I’m the network guy at my office).
I had to leave again for 4 weeks.
I got back, couldn’t fix it, stared at it for another 3 weeks thinking “wonderful…here we go again” and finally woke up one day and said “I’m not dealing with this again” and took the entire thing down to COMP USA, left it on their service desk with a letter that basically said “thanks but no thanks…here’s the copies of the 3 letters that took me almost a full year to get resolved….I don’t even want to talk to you folks…just send me a working computer…goodbye”
They told me I needed to come back and pick up my computer because anything after 30 days (or maybe it was 60), they don’t offer replacement.
It still sits on their shelves today.
But…it doesn’t stop there!
I decided to give HP one more shot at doing the right thing.
I’d paid my entire bill in full.
This wasn’t about getting money back out of the deal…I simply wanted a computer that worked. In my letter I even stated as much. “Just give me one that works”.
That’s not that tough is it? Surely out of several 100 thousand computers that they make…they ought to be able to find me one that works?
Right?
So I sent a letter to the brand new president of HP. I explained how my printer had failed, my original media center had failed, my fax had failed, moreover, that I’d spent close to 50k in proprietary toner cartridges that no doubt they’d made piles of money on me, I even included the reciepts to prove that I’d actually spent that almost 50k!
And I sent the reciepts showing I’d paid the most recent media center in full and that I didn’t want money….just a working computer.
I got a nasty gram from their “difficult accounts” division.
They made it quite clear they didn’t want, nor need my business.
Since then I’ve purchased a small number (4) of Dell computers for my office.
However, I’m quite proud to announce that both of my companies have done exceptionally well in the last 30 months, far exceeding anything anticipated, one of which is growing at 75% annually and is expected to continue that rate of growth for at least 3 - 5 more years and we’re in architectual review to build 3 new buildings (2 will be rented out…we’ll occupy one).
As of last count, our plans are to purchase 5 or 6 servers, 16 desktops (about 1/2 need to have significant processing and video capacity due to our new needs), color laser printers for each desk, scanners for approx. 60% of those desks, 3 fax machines, a conference room with video and audio equipment, and a myriad of other items.
At last count, and at current valuations, with software, etc., the bill will run between $65,000.00 and 95,000.00.
I am quite pleased to announce that not a single bit of it will be HP product.
Jon Julnes
Jon@VanguardOnline.com
correction to my previous post. i’m no longer satisfied with my $300 hp printer (2610xi aio). it failed, and i took it to an hp repair shop, where they said “hp doesn’t stock parts for your two year old printer, so we can’t repair it.”
that’s an interesting way to encourage purchase of a new printer: don’t support maintenance on your printers.
[...] don’t know if any of you remember this entry about the HP 2575 and how it made me want to crash my car into Staples, but it is GONE! I finally have had enough of its blatant horrendous-ity and I have sent it out of [...]
I’m having problems with this piece of plastic as well.
I have a HP F300 all-in-one, and recently it stopped being able to scan.. several google searches only made me learn the HP helpdesk sucks ass, and that there is no appartent solution aside from tossing it out of the window.
Which i am tempted to do.
It’s also been bugging me how much crap a company can but in software, making my pc run slow, and having no useful purpose at all. I have i think 4 programs of HP, of which i use neither, but uninstall of a single one would probably disable the whole machine altogether. The settings of my scanner are all pre-set into some lame photo enhancement thing that ruins most scans, and these setting can not be set into a differnt default.
What i would like to ask, what brand all-in-one does not hog my pc with shitty software, is plug n play, and works as i want it to work?