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Dr. has left the house and it's not good
- Thread starter jdoug5170
- Start date
TyrantDesigner
Art! Hot and fresh.
Well it's going to be cheaper than a whole new machine so keep that in mind. the main board is probably what ... $2k. Not bad considering its a $10k printer right?
Eh, when a technician in our trade, or actually in most industries, tells you that there is only one way to fix something and that is to replace the whole thing (the motherboard in this case) it actually means that it is the easiest way.
That's like taking your computer that's full of viruses and gunk to a PC guy and he tells you that the only way to fix it is to format the system and delete everything on it. That's the most straightforward and easiest way The reason he tells you this is usually cause he can't charge you enough to spend some 5 hours cleaning out your computer, instead he can charge you $20 to do the format and do that in half an hour while he can do something else.
If you're going to replace the entire motherboard anyway might as well try taking it to some electronics genius and have him take a look at it and see if he can replace it.
The technician told you the fastest and simplest way to do it, but it is also the most expensive one, all technicians are like this and it's necessarily a bad thing a lot of the time, especially for people that don't have the time to wait around for a fix or people who aren't very comfortable with tech but of course this is also the most expensive one.
A few months back we had a similar situation. We have a printer that uses fiber optic cables as a connection form the PC to the motherboard. The port where you screw the cable in broke and we were pretty much ****ed. Just getting the technician there would probably cost us $1k as the only competent one is some 350km (a bit over 200 miles) away. What we did instead was phone around and found a guy that works with fiber optics for a local ISP. He came the same night, replaced the jack, welded the cables together (the welder for fiber optic cables is a pretty cool, precise little thing). We took him to a nice dinner, had some drinks and gave him $100 as a thank you.
If we had gone the technician route we would have probably had to buy $500-1000 worth of stuff and have waited for it for like a few weeks, and we were in a pretty big job at the time.
That's like taking your computer that's full of viruses and gunk to a PC guy and he tells you that the only way to fix it is to format the system and delete everything on it. That's the most straightforward and easiest way The reason he tells you this is usually cause he can't charge you enough to spend some 5 hours cleaning out your computer, instead he can charge you $20 to do the format and do that in half an hour while he can do something else.
If you're going to replace the entire motherboard anyway might as well try taking it to some electronics genius and have him take a look at it and see if he can replace it.
The technician told you the fastest and simplest way to do it, but it is also the most expensive one, all technicians are like this and it's necessarily a bad thing a lot of the time, especially for people that don't have the time to wait around for a fix or people who aren't very comfortable with tech but of course this is also the most expensive one.
A few months back we had a similar situation. We have a printer that uses fiber optic cables as a connection form the PC to the motherboard. The port where you screw the cable in broke and we were pretty much ****ed. Just getting the technician there would probably cost us $1k as the only competent one is some 350km (a bit over 200 miles) away. What we did instead was phone around and found a guy that works with fiber optics for a local ISP. He came the same night, replaced the jack, welded the cables together (the welder for fiber optic cables is a pretty cool, precise little thing). We took him to a nice dinner, had some drinks and gave him $100 as a thank you.
If we had gone the technician route we would have probably had to buy $500-1000 worth of stuff and have waited for it for like a few weeks, and we were in a pretty big job at the time.
and if he's already planning on replacing the motherboard there is no harm in trying, worst case scenario it's ruined and you lose nothing, best case you have it repaired for like 1/10 the price of a new one and continue working with it for years to come.
TyrantDesigner
Art! Hot and fresh.
Well, it is after all just the usb right? that is unsoldering the (8?) pins, putting a new usb port on and re-soldering. I would say 1/100th the cost.
Well you know I assumed that he didn't want to do it himself and that he would get someone to do it for him, that someone needs to be paid so I assumed $100-200
Talking with a couple of different board level techs locally that feel they should be able to do the repair. Interesting that the one I talked to on the east coast that does these board repairs does not feel comfortable with replacing the usb port and ic chip...
But, as many are saying, if it works, I save $1300, if not, I spend a couple extra hundred that I don't have...just a bigger dent in the old credit card, right?
But, as many are saying, if it works, I save $1300, if not, I spend a couple extra hundred that I don't have...just a bigger dent in the old credit card, right?
How much did they estimate you for the repairs ?
EDIT:
Did you tell the guy that's not comfortable replacing it that there is no harm done if it goes kapoof ? While the possibility exists that he could screw up the board as long as he does this sort of thing on a regular basis the risk isn't too high, especially if you're gonna be replacing this thing anyway. Maybe he's not comfortable doing it cause he thinks he could break it and then he would be blamed or something.
EDIT:
Did you tell the guy that's not comfortable replacing it that there is no harm done if it goes kapoof ? While the possibility exists that he could screw up the board as long as he does this sort of thing on a regular basis the risk isn't too high, especially if you're gonna be replacing this thing anyway. Maybe he's not comfortable doing it cause he thinks he could break it and then he would be blamed or something.
I had the same thing happen here, just a much smaller scale. The USB port went bad on our GX-24. Was told we had to replace the whole board, etc. Took it to the local Radio shack and the owner replaced the USB port. The bill was $8.00. Gave him a $50 and we where both happy as could be.
I've heard a very similar story on here about a Roland board and some chip on or resistor, something like that. He also said that it was like $10-20 bucks including the fuel it took him to go to radio shack
Techman
New Member
about 30% of the time. The contact pins on the usb port are misaligned or pressed down to far. I have fixed a number of those ports over the years by carefully raising the contactors in the female side of the port.
Or worst case was to replace the port itself. a few solder points and its out.
Or worst case was to replace the port itself. a few solder points and its out.
Just goes to show how important knowledge in life can be.
At least your technician diagnosed the problem, ours aren't even able to do that. We just cut them off, found a third party technician to do stuff that requires some things we don't know/don't want to do and we just do most of the repairs ourselves. Diagnosing a problem is the hard part, the rest is pretty easy.
At least your technician diagnosed the problem, ours aren't even able to do that. We just cut them off, found a third party technician to do stuff that requires some things we don't know/don't want to do and we just do most of the repairs ourselves. Diagnosing a problem is the hard part, the rest is pretty easy.