Lexmark Recalls 40,000 Laser Printers

Open source printers by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-07 23:05 · Score: 4, Funny

See, if the printers were open source, then this problem would have been caught much earlier!

Lexmark missed its Mark by jellomizer · 2004-09-07 23:11 · Score: 4, Interesting

I never was a real fan of Lexmark printers but they are actually pritty popular because they can take a lot of paper trays. I have seen some 4 or 5 high with paper trays. They are very popular at banks. I havent been to a bank yet that doesn't use Lexmark Printers. That may just be because banks are cheap. But reparing some lexmark printeres and seeing where there are a lot of oversights in the design process of the printers where there could be a problem like that. There not like HP or Xerox (I am talking about Laser Printers not the others) printers which are designed quite well.

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If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.

Re:Lexmark missed its Mark by ecalkin · 2004-09-08 01:04 · Score: 3, Interesting

in a weird, twisted way, lexmark isn't doing badly...

i was teaching (certified ms and novell) classes in lexington, oh about 1997 or so, and we had some lexmark people in our classes. one day they mentioned that they were celebrating! and what were they celebrating? they had obtained a *whole* 1 percent of laser printer marketshare.

if you counted the hardware that hp manufactured for other vendors (hp made a lot of apple lasers, etc), they at the time were 85 to 95 percent of the market. canon, lexmark, epson, brother, etc were fighting for the leftovers.

as a side note, it was interesting in central ky to watch a marketing slogan vaporize overnight. as a selling point, "it's made in lexington" or "it's made in kentucky" as very popular. then they moved manufacturing to mexico (or china). it was amazing to hear the marketing people just about leave a blank spot in they speeches where it used to be.

eric
Re:Lexmark missed its Mark by EtherMonkey · 2004-09-08 03:00 · Score: 2, Informative

I havent been to a bank yet that doesn't use Lexmark Printers. That may just be because banks are cheap.

No, its because banks are traditionally die-hard IBM customers, and Lexmark is a spin-off of IBM's printer division. Price is usually at the bottom of the list for Banks.
I'm not a fan of Lexmark either, but HP seems to be doing all it can to match Lexmark in the crappy printer and software arena. Fortunately, at least the higher-end HP lasers are still decent, provided you can find a compatible driver built-in to your Operating System; using HP's printer drivers is like playing Russian roulette with 5 out of 6 chambers loaded.

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--- A man with a briefcase can steal more money, than any man with a gun. [Don Henley]

This is a feature. by John_Allen_Mohammed · 2004-09-07 23:11 · Score: 4, Funny

No reason to recall these printers. Who here, wouldn't mind getting a nasty little shock every once in a while, besides me ? I wont be participating in this recall, no thank you Lexmark.

My first good discharge, when I was 13, working on the circuit board of a commodore monitor. Not sure what I touched but I could feel the wave of electricity going up and through my arm, couldn't move, literally I was stuck for at least 2 seconds. Pretty scary but thrilling at the same time. I wouldn't call it a near death experience but it was damn near exciting.

Peace.

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Skype Me! username: john_allen_mohammed

hmmm.. by next1 · 2004-09-07 23:15 · Score: 3, Funny

Contact information is provided in the article in order to get your free replacement.

and.. for those already electrocuted?

Re:Is that just electrical shock... by berkut7 · 2004-09-07 23:16 · Score: 4, Informative

Take off your tin foil hat for a second? DO you even understand the difference between inkjet and laser?

Great gift idea by wackysootroom · 2004-09-07 23:18 · Score: 4, Funny

Thanks for the great gift idea, slashdot. With Christmas just around the corner I know that my PHB will just love a printer in his office that's his very own.

Re:Is that just electrical shock... by Tuvai · 2004-09-07 23:19 · Score: 2, Insightful

Sharp practices maybe, but product recalls are almost always a grave embarrassment for any company.
Watching your stocks take a sharp fall and your reputation dented is far too steep a price to pay for squeezing some extra cash out of a few thousand customers, there's machiavelian and then there's stupid.

Re:Is that just electrical shock... by Andy_R · 2004-09-07 23:20 · Score: 4, Funny

Or put on a tinfoil body suit and ignore the recall!

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A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a

Who says... by ka9qpn · 2004-09-07 23:21 · Score: 4, Funny

...you can't set a laser printer on 'stun'?

Re:Who says... by BetterThanCaesar · 2004-09-07 23:58 · Score: 2, Funny

I want frickin' sharks with frickin' laser printers attached to their heads!

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"Stop failing the Turing test!" -- Dilbert

Hee Hee by Omicron · 2004-09-07 23:24 · Score: 3, Funny

If you REALLY want to tweak a Dell rep, when you have them on the phone, talk about the nice Lexmark printers they are selling. They are very adamant that they aren't Lexmarks, they are Dells. It's pretty hilarious. Our rep kinda jumped down our bosses throat when he called them Lexmarks. It's fun to mess with them. Especially when you see articles like these, and others, talking about the Lexmark printers.

Re:Hee Hee by fuzzix · 2004-09-07 23:56 · Score: 4, Interesting

This is a fact - you'll also find that Dell don't provide the same level of driver support on these rebadged pieces of crap.

I recently had an experience where a friend of my Dad bought a Dell printer for his ageing Win98 box. The supplied driver disc was for Win2K/XP only. A little research yielded the fact that the Dell model (A920) was the exact same as the Lexmark X1150. I remember the model numbers due to the trauma involved... Lexmark provide a Win9x driver for this model. Dell don't. Attempts to install the Lexmark driver were hampered by the fact that the printer identified itself as Dell.

Even worse was the fact that upon calling Dell it was suggested he buy a new machine - from Dell of course. I started wondering if there was some specific reason for the lack of support - Surely Win9x support means you would sell more printers! Ah, you want to sell more of those boxes instead...

A friend of my sister works for Dell front line support. I asked him about the situation and he said "yeah, we had a few calls about that..." and nothing else.

Me: Why no 98 driver? The Lexmark version has one - surely a trivial matter for one of your guys to customise it for the Dell version.
Him: But it's a Dell printer - a Lexmark driver won't work.
Me (slapping forehead): Why is there no 98 driver?
Him: Yeah, we had a few calls on that.
Me: I can see how you got that Dell job.
Him: Thanks!

He bought a new box (not from Dell, thankfully) and the old machine was donated to a local school. I guess all's Dell that ends Dell...
Re:Hee Hee by fuzzix · 2004-09-08 01:23 · Score: 2, Insightful

As for legacy drivers. Why should Dell be obligated to provide Driver support for Operating Systems they don't sell and haven't sold for years? Dell never sold printers at the same time it sold Windows 98. Most people do not "just" buy a Dell Printer, they buy it with a system purchase.
Lastly, the support information for the printer and basic information available on the website clearly states which Operating Systems the printer can use. Note further down the page on the right under Compatibility .. where is says, Compatible only with Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
I never said this guy was the brightest spark - even if he read the minimum specs he probably wouldn't know if his machine met them. I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume you work for Dell... I just get the feeling, is all. Following from that assumption I would guess you have dealt with Dell customers. Had any who have known what's going on and what to do right off the bat? No? That's probably why the support guys have that script - easier to assume they've tried nothing.

The reason I was stunned by the situation is that Lexmark offer a Win9x driver for what is essentially exactly the same hardware. It wouldn't cost Dell a lot to include a "legacy" driver on their CD and they might sell a few more printers. They already have driver code to work with! Small changes required! Hell, I might have tried it myself if I had known enough about WinDriver hacking...

The fact that printers are offered individually means people are buying them. I guess at least 10% of people are still using Win9x. That's 10% of a potential customer base cut right out. I know Dell aren't obliged to supply a legacy driver, but not doing so seems to me to be a bit silly given the effort required.

Ugh... by Heem · 2004-09-07 23:24 · Score: 5, Interesting

So now you have a "get out of lexmark-hell free" card. Return your old printer for the recall and get the new one fresh in the box. Sell the new printer as "brand new in box" on ebay or in local papers. Then go out to the store and get a decent printer.

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Don't Tread on Me

This is only the testing phase... by miskatonic+alumnus · 2004-09-07 23:30 · Score: 4, Funny

Do to massive copyright infringement, whenever someone prints out copyrighted materials they will receive an electric shock!!

What matters is how mistakes are handled by Alwin+Henseler · 2004-09-07 23:35 · Score: 4, Insightful

From the article: "Lexmark shares were down $3.24, or 3.8 percent, to $82.86, in midday trading on the New York Stock Exchange"

I find it weird that people (or stockholders) would react so negatively to news like this. Making millions of consumer electronic items, there will always be some mistakes made. What matters is not that shit happens, but how it is handled.

Ofcourse it would be nice if products were perfect, but I don't regard a manufacturer any worse because of a mishap like this. If they handle such a recall in a painless and professional way, that would more likely boost my confidence in them. Problems like this are often very minor things, and say nothing about the overall quality of their product.

I would think worse (and less likely buy something) of a company that tries to look good, sweep problems under the rug, and pretend nothing happened.

Re:What matters is how mistakes are handled by DNS-and-BIND · 2004-09-08 00:04 · Score: 3, Interesting

That's because the stock market's dirty little secret is that it's just a huge gambling house. "Negative news" means it's time to sell short and "positive news" means it's time to buy. Go check out any of the daytrader boards and you'll see it.

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Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!

Sorry, can't help it.... by Eric_Cartman_South_P · 2004-09-07 23:41 · Score: 2, Funny

I have one of those printers, and they are awesome. This article is bullshit. I've got auto-double-sided-printing going on right now with 20 copies, and even my APC tower for my desktop says everythIN4$%JK#%DAT+0+0[NO CARRIER]

It's official.. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-07 23:45 · Score: 5, Funny

Netcraft confirms: Lexmark users are dying.

Re:Since when is 39,400 equal to 40,000? by tigress · 2004-09-07 23:50 · Score: 4, Funny

You, my dear, have never worked in journalism.

In journalism, 39400 is a difficult number. Many reporters have trouble understanding numbers such as those. Thus, it is rounded up to 40000, because that's both easier to comprehend and it looks cooler (lots of zeros).

Next in line are the editors. The editors like round numbers, that's why the reporters always round their numbers up. Most editors like round numbers so much that they round them up to, let's say, 50000, which obviously is half of 100000.

You might also have noticed that lexmark stock is down $3.46 from this morning. Let's apply the same techniques that we learned earlier. Let's make this a nice, round figure of $5.

Now, Lexmark has about 129.5 million shares outstanding. This means, in journalist-speak, that there are 200 million lexmark shares on the market. Multiply this with the figure you got earlier (this part is very difficult for most reporters and editors) and you get $1,000,000,000.

This looks very impressive, right? Still, there's something missing. Of course there is! Let's add the word "over". What do we get?

LEXMARK MAKES OVER $1,000,000,000 LOSS ON PRINTER RECALL

Isn't that a headline to be proud of?

Of course, you might ask what the heck I'm smoking and what this has to do with reality. If you do that, you've uncovered one of the greatest secrets about journalism - it has nothing to do with reality at all.

Oh, and by the way, where did all those $1,000,000,000 USD go? Well, I'll tell you. In fact, I could use a bit of help in transfering those to a private bank acount. If you care to help me out, I can offer you a 30% share of the money...

With apologies to Electric Six... by Elphin · 2004-09-07 23:53 · Score: 5, Funny

Fire in the Lexmark
Fire in the rebadged dell
Fire in the Lexmark
Fire in the gates of hell

Don't you want to know how we keep starting fires?
It's my Lexmark, It's my Lexmark, It's my Lexmark

Don't you want to know how we keep starting fires?
It's my Lexmark, It's my Lexmark, It's my Lexmark

Danger! Danger! High Voltage!
When we touch, When we print
Danger! Danger! High Voltage!
When we touch, when we print
when we touch

Safety certification by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-08 00:09 · Score: 2, Interesting

Together with the IBM adapter recall last week , it would seem the CPSC is getting better at picking out product safety faults than UL whom the manufacturers actually pay to do this kind of thing.

Any chance they can add the Z65n to the list? by eexlebots · 2004-09-08 00:18 · Score: 3, Interesting

That particularly lovely model of printer also had "electrical problems"; that is, the power supply melted away! Then after a quick search I found I was not the only one with the same melty problem. So this news surprises me, but only because Lexmark is actually recalling a faulty product!

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Reminds me of my coop experience in college by crosseyedatnite · 2004-09-08 00:18 · Score: 5, Interesting

Back before there were laser printers for PCs, the first laser printer I encountered was an IBM unit the size of about 6 racks and had a drum with a diameter of about 3 feet. It used the old pin-fed paper and like the line printers it stood next to, took paper by the box. It could go through an entire box of paper in 7 minutes.

Thus, you had this huge fast spinning drum in a very dry environment. When it was first installed it was improperly grounded, and soon afterward one print room employee got severly shocked, with the static charge arcing about a foot, knocking him across the room. The details weren't made public, but I believe he got a decent settlement from IBM.

I guess you could say this isn't the first incident of electic shock from a laster printer...

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e to the i pi equals negative one

HP must be rejoicing by Donny+Smith · 2004-09-08 02:20 · Score: 2, Insightful

Great news for HP - they must be laughing their asses off!

This is interesting news in relation to HP vs. Dell (Lexmark, that is) printer war.

Dell wants to screw up HP by selling directly cheap(er) printers that are supposedly as good as HP's. Well, that's obviously not entirely true.

HP laser printers aren't cheap, but they're good.
The question is can Dell find a supplier that can equal HP in quality and newest technology?

Product Safety Problem by lcsjk · 2004-09-08 03:44 · Score: 2, Insightful

As a product safety engineer, one of my jobs was working with UL/CSA/VDE/CE and the ISO-1950 worldwide requirement. Most likely, this recall is a result of not meeting that ISO-1950 or other product safety requirement. If you don't meet the requirement and someone gets hurt, the company is liable, and in some countries, (Germany I believe- at one time) a visiting manager is considered responsible and can be jailed until the issue is resolved. (Gets your attention if you are a manager.) Lexmark can put a new printer on the market without passing these tests, but if there is an accident they can be sued for everything they have. A small change in manufacturing process or a part change for cost reduction can result in an unanticipated failure and be the reason for a large recall. Most likely there will never be a problem, but companies cannot afford to take chances. Also, if they have applied the safety logo (UL/CE etc.), they are responsible for keeping the product safe, i.e., meeting the safety requirements.

At my old company we said, "If the product was not tested, lawsuits could run us out of business. If we pass tests and someone does something stupid and gets hurt, then the courts will not award the person more than $100,000.

I'm sure it was caused by... by nusratt · 2004-09-08 08:17 · Score: 2, Funny

... the "illicit" third-party toner cartridges.

Took y'all long enough to find out by KB3JJY · 2004-09-08 10:47 · Score: 2, Interesting

took long enough for y'all to post this I work at a branch of the countries largest office supply change. We pulled the machine in early august as ordered by lexmark. When the retail lexmark rep came in he told me their was a powersupply problem but if any yone asks just tell them we are bringing out a new model. I couldn't believe it they took long enough for the consumer recall and didn't want to recall them. This lexmark sales rep said the problem was do to grounding and anyone with a modern house would be safe, he said lexmark engineers believe most people have houses up to the NEC(National Electric Code) He gave me a gift certificate to keep quite. If I get some good posts back I will give out more info

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Torvalds is god

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Lexmark Recalls 40,000 Laser Printers

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