Conundrum

[Buckman]

Not sure when last we broke a mirror. However much to our dismay our router stopped working and kept indicating No Internet. The provider sent out an Openreach technician after we went through everything on the phone with them first. He arrived yesterday and went through everything changing the router,the cables and the connection box, but still no Internet. He admitted defeat and left.

It now appears that there is an issue between the street box and our property so needs another technician who probably cannot be with us for a couple of days. As we have no landline, poor mobile signal and zero broadband we have a slight problem. I had to drive about a mile down the road to upload some documents. Oh well such is life.

Also yesterday I noticed that the control radiator for the central heating had pulled away from the dry wall. Fearing a flood if it came loose entirely we contacted the fitters. Next day service. It turns out it was never fitted properly in the first place and only had two bolts holding it in place so no charge. Job done.

 

[otherclive]

Life can be difficult at times. I’m trying to finish setting up a new HP printer. It’s showing a continuous blue light, it’s diagnostic says it’s connected via the Virgin router. Yet when I go into my HP Instant Ink account it tells me it’s not connected to the internet so HP cannot monitor usage and ink levels in order to invoice me and supply replacement cartridges. The AI chat bot is about as useful as an igloo in Mauritania.

 

[otherclive]

Just a view, you could try plugging your phone in to the cars multimedia system as on mine using the mobile via the car gets me a better signal than just in the house or garden. I tried it a while back when setting up the cars various menus.

 

[Buckman]

Life can be difficult at times. I’m trying to finish setting up a new HP printer. It’s showing a continuous blue light, it’s diagnostic says it’s connected via the Virgin router. Yet when I go into my HP Instant Ink account it tells me it’s not connected to the internet so HP cannot monitor usage and ink levels in order to invoice me and supply replacement cartridges. The AI chat bot is about as useful as an igloo in Mauritania.

I needed to print off a document and no Wifi so unable to print.

 

[Sam Vimes]

I needed to print off a document and no Wifi so unable to print.

Can you connect a Usb cable between your PC and printer?

 

[Buckman]

Can you connect a Usb cable between your PC and printer?

No idea, but probably don't have the correct USB cable? I uploaded the document to my phone so hopefully that will be good enough.

 

[Sam Vimes]

You don't need the internet to print if your printer is on the same home network. As long as the WiFi is working you should still be able to print.

 

[Steve1962]

Life can be difficult at times. I’m trying to finish setting up a new HP printer. It’s showing a continuous blue light, it’s diagnostic says it’s connected via the Virgin router. Yet when I go into my HP Instant Ink account it tells me it’s not connected to the internet so HP cannot monitor usage and ink levels in order to invoice me and supply replacement cartridges. The AI chat bot is about as useful as an igloo in Mauritania.

We have just replaced our HP Printer......with a new HP printer.......the first one was supposed to connected wirelessly but I could never get it to do so, even after speaking to HP - they insisted it should.
In the end I connected it with an ethernet cable and bingo.....it connected ......I then disconnected the ethernet cable and it managed wirelessly without issue after that.
The new one (HP6400) connected seamlessly and is working fine.

 

[otherclive]

We have just replaced our HP Printer......with a new HP printer.......the first one was supposed to connected wirelessly but I could never get it to do so, even after speaking to HP - they insisted it should.
In the end I connected it with an ethernet cable and bingo.....it connected ......I then disconnected the ethernet cable and it managed wirelessly without issue after that.
The new one (HP6400) connected seamlessly and is working fine.

Your experience is exactly the reverse of mine. The old printer no problems. This new one…..ugh. I set it up last Friday with the SETUP cartridges supplied in the box. But they will not work with Instant Ink account so as soon as I registered the new printer with Instant Ink HP dispatched two Instant Ink cartridges by RM Tracked 48. They arrived today after 120 hours ! But even after installing them HP Smart still told me it was not connected. So despite its diagnosis and status as “connected” the Instant Ink account showed “ not connected”. I will try the Ethernet approach tomorrow before contacting HP’s real life people. In comparison I had no problem connecting the new car to the domestic network and having wifi.

 

[Buckman]

Just realised why the laptop would not connect wirelessly. They changed the router so new password required.

 

[Beachball]

Got a new Epson printer it suppose to work wireless but so far not manage it but when i plug in the USB cable it works so for the easier use i just leave it in .

 

[Buckman]

You don't need the internet to print if your printer is on the same home network. As long as the WiFi is working you should still be able to print.

We ares till without Internet. Just spent nearly the best part of an hour trying to connect to router wifi, but the printer will not connect. I suspect it is because the router has changed plus no Internet?

 

[Andy Norfolk]

I'm no expert! But if you have a new router you will have to reconnect the printer with the new router details. Sorry if I'm teaching you to suck eggy!

 

[otherclive]

Well yesterday afternoon I contacted HP support which gives three different means of talking to a person. I opted to use Live Lens where you download an app that gives the support agent the ability to remotely change things on your computer as part of the real time support. In parallel you are in audio contact with the agent.

Spent an intense 30 minutes where the support agent went through all the things I’d done before and saw the printer as connected, good wifi signal from router, and able to remote print from three devices. But on the HP Instant Ink portal it still showed no connection so as a printed test pages the page count doesn’t increase. So HP will not be able to bill me, or know when new ink is required.

I’m beginning to suspect that the problem is in the interface between the HP Smart app on my MAC OS, iOS devices and the printer.

Might just decide to go back to my old method of several years ago and just buy ink when required.

 

[Sam Vimes]

We ares till without Internet. Just spent nearly the best part of an hour trying to connect to router wifi, but the printer will not connect. I suspect it is because the router has changed plus no Internet?

Not sure what printer you have but look for a setting called WiFi WPS and select that. Then on the back of your router there should be a button marked WPS. Press that and with luck the printer should connect.

 

[Buckman]

Not sure what printer you have but look for a setting called WiFi WPS and select that. Then on the back of your router there should be a button marked WPS. Press that and with luck the printer should connect.

All sorted. The technician forgot to input my username and password into the replacement router. However there was a fault at the street box which I guess threw him a wobbly!

 

[Sam Vimes]

All sorted. The technician forgot to input my username and password into the replacement router. However there was a fault at the street box which I guess threw him a wobbly!

That's good. Happy printing and surfing.

 

[Buckman]

However while we are sort of on about computers, if the symbols on some keys have "worn" away and you cannot identify the key i.e. A, B C etc is there anything you can do besides replacing the keys?

 

[JTQ]

However while we are sort of on about computers, if the symbols on some keys have "worn" away and you cannot identify the key i.e. A, B C etc is there anything you can do besides replacing the keys?

Yes replace the keyboard as these are readily available and cheaply.
With the characters being worn off then the keyboard itself has either seen a good long life or was a poor quality one and reinvesting in another, can't be profligate. eg LINK, wired ones even less.

Then there is the QWERTY key board ought to by now be pretty familiar, to the point of intuitive, do you actually need to see which alpha character key is which?

There is also Windows accessibility feature offering on screen keyboards LINK, or even making a photocopy etc picture as a paste it note to put by the screen.

 

[Buckman]

Yes replace the keyboard as these are readily available and cheaply.
With the characters being worn off then the keyboard itself has either seen a good long life or was a poor quality one and reinvesting in another, can't be too profligate.

Then there is the QWERTY key board ought to by now be pretty familiar, to the point of intuitive, do you actually need to see which key is which?

Several keys are affected on the Asus laptop. I stopped using it about 3 years ago when I bought the Dell Inspiron i7 which has given me more headaches than any previous laptop I have owned.

Amazingly it only started going faulty about a month or so after the warranty period and we did not want to take out their service plan. It has been getting worse ever since. One has to really really bang the keys to input anything.

Half the time the space bar does not work, backspace functions when it feels like it, the down scroll key gave up working a long time ago, enter only works if you repeatedly bang it. Taking it into a computer repair shop on Monday to see if it can be repaired at a reasonable cost.

 

[JTQ]

On a laptop it clearly is a pain. I was addressing the stated worn away the symbols, not key functionality gone defunct.

IME DELLs though I have only owned Latitude series have been the most durable of any brands I have owned or repaired. They are their more ruggedised ones, and again IME the more readily repairable of laptops.
Their Latitude keyboards I have found are readily replaceable but paying a commercial repairer it is not going to be cheap.

An i7 processor one, are you or yours really avid 3D games players or big video editors to need anything so massively processing-wise capable?

 

[Buckman]

On a laptop it clearly is a pain. I was addressing the stated worn away the symbols, not key functionality gone defunct.

IME DELLs though I have only owned Latitude series have been the most durable of any brands I have owned or repaired. They are their more ruggedised ones, and again IME the more readily repairable of laptops.
Their Latitude keyboards I have found are readily replaceable but paying a commercial repairer it is not going to be cheap.

An i7 processor one, are you or yours really avid 3D games players or big video editors to need anything so massively processing-wise capable?

When I bought the Dell I was using it for doing up old photos etc. however these days I seldom use it for that purpose. Some days the keys on the Dell work okay no issue and I suspect a software issue.

On the Asus apparently the top of the key can be replaced, but not sure where they can be obtained. At least the Asus doesn't stress me out.

I also got a really low spec brand new Samsung Chromebook still in its box that has never been used. It arrived about 2 weeks after buying a new S24 phone. It was a free gift. All my stuff is Windows based although I do use FF. I have Office 365 which is now an overkill as only use Word, Excel & Outlook. Hard for me to break away from them as too used to using them and hate change. LOL!

 

[JTQ]

The Chromebook will be excellent for web browsing, word processing and emails. The "freebie" Samsung could do with being just a wee bit bigger.

Your post sometime back about the unwanted Chromebook instigated me to pick up an unwanted used Chromebook to play with, mainly to help my grey cells.
In some ways I am impressed how adequate it is for the type of use most of those typical home user I get involved with* actually use their PCs, cheap and very good battery life.
It will be my sole take camping computer, doing all I need then and as said how its battery holds up is very impressive, as helps when off EHU.

Adapting to its differences to Windows I found of no real challenge, is it not also what most very young school children use, which IMO has to indicate it has to be pretty easy, not to risk making them anti IT.

*The older, non gamers who just want to access the new web based age.

 

[Buckman]

Thanks JTQ I might take a look at it again if I can have Outlook on it. I did tried Thunderbird, but could not get on with it. Libreoffice I can use for all other documents, but not sure about other windows based programs like Corel Paintshop and also the Epson printer?

 

[JTQ]

I would suspect MS would make sure it can't use Outlook, but never tried,
I having used Thunderbird with Linux, so that never phased me in anyway.
On older machines that will not run the new flavour Outlook I have so far found the few people involved, have accepted Thunderbird once I had reset up their email accounts on it. Or they have not told me!

There will be some changes to the apps you use, but these ought to be easy enough to pick up given a will to invest in doing so.
If the printer will not interface then aft.er dealing with suff on the Chromebook send it to the DELL for that final function