Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Specmaster]

Fuser is probably fecked. That’s what killed my last brother laser.

I'm not so sure, the print comes out OK, paper is nice and hot but the print has black horizontal line which is smudged on it, the rest is nice and sharp, and print also has a chost of the page before printed on it, which is also visibile if you look inside the printer, still on the transfer belt. Surely the fuser just does the cook the toner onto the paper, which it does.

Edit, the drum has been inspected for damage and also cleaned with IPA so the drum is spotless.

Measure the distance between the main print and the ghosted image. Then divide by pi. Then find whatever is circular and that diameter in the printer and there’s your problem

Just discovered a page in the service manual that provides maeasurement periods and a description of the effect and by measuring the periods between the printed patterns it directs you the defective roller, so I'll have to revist that later as its time to cure the leak from the bathroom before I can finish the bog ceiling properly 

[bd139]

I never looked in a printer manual before. I should try that next time 

My own bit of debugging for the afternoon. When I built my PC recently it had a little niggle with it. Basically it wouldn't power up first time every time. You had to turn it off and on again 3-4 times before it'd start up. Perfectly fine once it is up. So debugging time it was. Figured it'd be related to ATX startup.

After 10 minutes I found the problem thanks to the DS1054Z. Turns out the power supply is getting startup signal from motherboard fine and returning an OK back after that. All good. But there's an RC curve on the PWR_OK signal which didn't look particularly good. Well it turns out that varies somewhat depending on the phase of the moon and after a few seconds it disappears. What could be the cause? Well I eventually after unplugging everything it turned out that if you plug ANYTHING into a USB 3.1 port on the board at boot it has that RC curve and won't start up  . Not sure what the cause is - probably some power management or boost/buck magic going wrong. The USB3.1 ports all work fine once it has booted but this holds the PWR_OK signal longer than 500ms which causes the startup to fail.

Solution was purely plugging the keyboard and mouse into the crap USB ports instead. Works a dream now!

Weird ass bug but solved at least for the moment (until the root cause manifests itself some other insidious way and releases smoke anyway!)

[Mr. Scram]

There's a reason you're advised to boot with a minimal amount of USB devices plugged in in case of trouble. Although it does surprise me it's happening with what must be a native USB controller. It was plenty common with discrete USB chipsets but I haven't seen this one before. Although USB 3 does seem a bit more finicky in general.

[med6753]

If I recall USB 3.0 provides +5V power to devices even if the PC is in hibernate or sleep. In total power off I would assume the supply drops the +5V.

Just thinking out loud. Could that have something to do with your issue?

[mnementh]

Anyone on here have any exerience with laser printers at all? I have been given a Samsung CLP-315W printer complete with a sealed set of toner cartridges plus an additional sealed magenta cartridge as as well. Problem is that it prints horizontal black smudges / lines across the whole page, sometimes its 1 or 2 and the position moves from top of the page the bottom and when it prints 2, the first is 1/3rd the page down from the top and 2nd line is 1/3rd up from the bottom.

The next page still has the same issues, plus a ghost image of the previous page. I have cleaned the transfer belt and also the imaging drum without any improvement.If I removed the toner artridges and look inside the printer, the transfer belt still has an image of the previous page. Any ideas what the cuprit is?

Most likely the drum. It has a photoelectric coating which weakens with age, and the "pre-clean" charge which is supposed to remove any residual image static charge from the drum between prints just can't do its job. One thing you can check is the "charge wire"; this may be at the drum or it may be one for each color roller. If it gets crunked up with toner powder it can't do its job right either; this usually manifests as fuzzy or "out of focus" prints but in principle it can affect the cleaning precharge as well.

There are oodles of vids on yoobToob showing diag procedures for pretty much all brands and problems; a quick Goog of "laser printer" with "ghost" and "repeating ghost" should yield lots of valid hits.

That said... the last time I had one of that family of Samsung color lasers in my possession it drove me so batty with one unrelated failure after another that one fateful day I yanked it off the desk, dragged it outside and smashed it with all my might into the concrete driveway; I swear this was not rage, but rather purely in defense of my own sanity. 

Good hunting my friend; I recommend a couple pints before you start to lessen the likelihood of similar "explosive stress reduction events" to those I experienced. Unless you're fecking around in the neighborhood of the HV section (charge wire,etc); you wanna be stone sober and your wits 110% around you when monkeying around in those innards.  Also, be plenty patient to allow HV to bleed off before you stick your penis-fingers in there. 

mnem
*veteran of 1000 Psychic Wars HP service calls*

[bd139]

If I recall USB 3.0 provides +5V power to devices even if the PC is in hibernate or sleep. In total power off I would assume the supply drops the +5V.

Just thinking out loud. Could that have something to do with your issue?

Yeah that’s exactly what I was thinking. The keyboard lights up like a Christmas tree in USB 3 hole and not USB 2 hole if it’s powered down.

There's a reason you're advised to boot with a minimal amount of USB devices plugged in in case of trouble. Although it does surprise me it's happening with what must be a native USB controller. It was plenty common with discrete USB chipsets but I haven't seen this one before. Although USB 3 does seem a bit more finicky in general.

I actually did that. But inevitably I rammed the keyboard straight in the USB 3 hole.

If there’s a combination that causes a failure I will trigger it. I am QA Satan 

[Mr. Scram]

My impulse would have been to use the lowest speeds ports. Thinking about it I've seen USB 3.X ports act up on docking stations and such and there may actually have been more native ones in the mix than I initially remembered too. As I said USB 3.X does appear more finicky. Maybe selling penisfinger services is a good side gig? "You make it, I break it. You can rely on penisfingers QA!"

[mnementh]

I never looked in a printer manual before. I should try that next time 

My own bit of debugging for the afternoon. When I built my PC recently it had a little niggle with it. Basically it wouldn't power up first time every time. You had to turn it off and on again 3-4 times before it'd start up. Perfectly fine once it is up. So debugging time it was. Figured it'd be related to ATX startup.

After 10 minutes I found the problem thanks to the DS1054Z. Turns out the power supply is getting startup signal from motherboard fine and returning an OK back after that. All good. But there's an RC curve on the PWR_OK signal which didn't look particularly good. Well it turns out that varies somewhat depending on the phase of the moon and after a few seconds it disappears. What could be the cause? Well I eventually after unplugging everything it turned out that if you plug ANYTHING into a USB 3.1 port on the board at boot it has that RC curve and won't start up  . Not sure what the cause is - probably some power management or boost/buck magic going wrong. The USB3.1 ports all work fine once it has booted but this holds the PWR_OK signal longer than 500ms which causes the startup to fail.

Solution was purely plugging the keyboard and mouse into the crap USB ports instead. Works a dream now!

Weird ass bug but solved at least for the moment (until the root cause manifests itself some other insidious way and releases smoke anyway!)

   Yeah, that's what this is for. You plug it into a dual-gang Y-harness (I put a switch in the PWR_ON wire on mine) and it'll tell you the exact PWR_GOOD timing. Then it's just a matter of unplugging things until you find the culprit.

That said... what you're experiencing should NEVER happen as a result of something as simple as a keyboard/mouse plugged into ANY USB port.

Clearly there is something wrong with your MB's power management; either substandard current measurement or a bug in the firmware that may or may not ever get fixed depending on the MFR. Some of the cheaper brands like ASROCK are known to use the voltage drop across FETs in the VRM to calculate current draw rather than a proper shunt; in principle this is okay, except that they also use the absolute cheapest by-the-boatload FETs, and IR is hardly a known quantity or quality therein. 

ASROCK also has recently gotten a lot of well-earned bad press for abandonware; whole families of boards that haven't received a FW update in years of manufacture even though they have a laundry list of known, confirmed bugs. 

mnem

[med6753]

If I recall USB 3.0 provides +5V power to devices even if the PC is in hibernate or sleep. In total power off I would assume the supply drops the +5V.

Just thinking out loud. Could that have something to do with your issue?

Yeah that’s exactly what I was thinking. The keyboard lights up like a Christmas tree in USB 3 hole and not USB 2 hole if it’s powered down.

There's a reason you're advised to boot with a minimal amount of USB devices plugged in in case of trouble. Although it does surprise me it's happening with what must be a native USB controller. It was plenty common with discrete USB chipsets but I haven't seen this one before. Although USB 3 does seem a bit more finicky in general.

I actually did that. But inevitably I rammed the keyboard straight in the USB 3 hole.

If there’s a combination that causes a failure I will trigger it. I am QA Satan 

As others have said it probably is a firmware issue but in reality there's no need to have the keyboard plugged into the USB 3 port unless you are one hell of a speed typist.   

[0culus]

If I recall USB 3.0 provides +5V power to devices even if the PC is in hibernate or sleep. In total power off I would assume the supply drops the +5V.

Just thinking out loud. Could that have something to do with your issue?

Yeah that’s exactly what I was thinking. The keyboard lights up like a Christmas tree in USB 3 hole and not USB 2 hole if it’s powered down.

There's a reason you're advised to boot with a minimal amount of USB devices plugged in in case of trouble. Although it does surprise me it's happening with what must be a native USB controller. It was plenty common with discrete USB chipsets but I haven't seen this one before. Although USB 3 does seem a bit more finicky in general.

I actually did that. But inevitably I rammed the keyboard straight in the USB 3 hole.

If there’s a combination that causes a failure I will trigger it. I am QA Satan 

Giggity.

 

[mnementh]

Oh shit... duhh! 

Look in your BIOS for a setting called "USB3.x Legacy mode" or "USB 3.x boot Mode" or somesuch. IIRC, there's setting that turns off the USB3.x controller and only uses the USB2.x controller on USB3.x ports until a UEFI-compliant OS boots up. See if that resolves it. 

mnem

[med6753]

If I recall USB 3.0 provides +5V power to devices even if the PC is in hibernate or sleep. In total power off I would assume the supply drops the +5V.

Just thinking out loud. Could that have something to do with your issue?

Yeah that’s exactly what I was thinking. The keyboard lights up like a Christmas tree in USB 3 hole and not USB 2 hole if it’s powered down.

There's a reason you're advised to boot with a minimal amount of USB devices plugged in in case of trouble. Although it does surprise me it's happening with what must be a native USB controller. It was plenty common with discrete USB chipsets but I haven't seen this one before. Although USB 3 does seem a bit more finicky in general.

I actually did that. But inevitably I rammed the keyboard straight in the USB 3 hole.

If there’s a combination that causes a failure I will trigger it. I am QA Satan 

Giggity.

 

I think he needs a woman. Perhaps a bat shit crazy red head will fix him right up. 

[Mr. Scram]

Yeah, that's what this is for. You plug it into a dual-gang Y-harness (I put a switch in the PWR_ON wire on mine) and it'll tell you the exact PWR_GOOD timing. Then it's just a matter of unplugging things until you find the culprit.

That said... what you're experiencing should NEVER happen as a result of something as simple as a keyboard/mouse plugged into ANY USB port.

Clearly there is something wrong with your MB's power management; either substandard current measurement or a bug in the firmware that may or may not ever get fixed depending on the MFR. Some of the cheaper brands like ASROCK are known to use the voltage drop across FETs in the VRM to calculate current draw rather than a proper shunt; in principle this is okay, except that they also use the absolute cheapest by-the-boatload FETs, and IR is hardly a known quantity or quality therein. 

ASROCK also has recently gotten a lot of well-earned bad press for abandonware; whole families of boards that haven't received a FW update in years of manufacture even though they have a laundry list of known, confirmed bugs. 

mnem

To be fair Asus, Gigabyte and plenty others have their own sometimes very serious issues. It seems to be a case of a race to the bottom and stuffing too many features into boards too cheaply. Not too much time to extensively test the product either.

[mnementh]

Yeah, but that's where the extra money spent on GIGA & ASUS pays off; you know there's going to be followup support after delivery. Take a look as the ASUS M5A series boards; almost 10 years and they've still got support.

mnem
*currently nuking a THX surround speaker*

[Mr. Scram]

Yeah, but that's where the extra money spent on GIGA & ASUS pays off; you know there's going to be followup support after delivery. Take a look as the ASUS M5A series boards; almost 10 years and they've still got support.

mnem
*currently nuking a THX surround speaker*

Support unfortunately also seems to be a hit and miss affair. People prefer to believe that spending more money will gain then better results and support but in consumer grade gear there doesn't seem to be much of a correlation. Intel's been shit, Asus's been shit, they've all been shit. Just buy something reasonable and hope the shit doesn't land on your head.

[mnementh]

I think he needs a woman. Perhaps a bat shit crazy red head will fix him right up. 

mnem
Smurf-pimpin', yo!

[mnementh]

Yeah, but that's where the extra money spent on GIGA & ASUS pays off; you know there's going to be followup support after delivery. Take a look as the ASUS M5A series boards; almost 10 years and they've still got support.

mnem
*currently nuking a THX surround speaker*

Support unfortunately also seems to be a hit and miss affair. People prefer to believe that spending more money will gain then better results and support but in consumer grade gear there doesn't seem to be much of a correlation. Intel's been shit, Asus's been shit, they've all been shit. Just buy something reasonable and hope the shit doesn't land on your head.

In almost 3 decades of building PCs from scratch, I have NEVER regretted the extra money spent on an ASUS board. 

mnem
 

[bd139]

Don’t need support. Just need it to work to start with  .

Mnem: there wasn’t a USB legacy mode selection in the BIOS unfortunately. Plugging it in different hold and problem solved so I’m happy.

As for ASrock vs gigabyte vs Asus, I doubt there’s a lot in it. Bar this issue it has been faultless and the ASrock board supports the newer CPUs fine so when I upgrade it’ll be fine.

The best motherboards that were on the market were the Intel ones before they pulled the plug on them. Totally bomb proof but not very fancy. I built nearly 200 PCs with them in and not one issue.

[med6753]

I think he needs a woman. Perhaps a bat shit crazy red head will fix him right up. 

mnem
Smurf-pimpin', yo!

Just the way I like my women.....with curves.....dangerous curves. 

[mnementh]

Sorry bd, looks like you're SOL; med beat ya to her. 

mnem

[bd139]

I’m good hahaha. Just remember it’ll start with the sexy smurfs. Then it’ll be clopping and yiffing. Don’t google those 

[mnementh]

I don't have to.

mnem
"A misspent youth is better by far than a wise & productive old age..." ~ Meat Loaf

[Mr. Scram]

In almost 3 decades of building PCs from scratch, I have NEVER regretted the extra money spent on an ASUS board. 

mnem
 

You may have had better luck with Asus than I have. Of course confirmation bias is a powerful thing. Even if spending the money doesn't help you feeling better about things may mean the money is well spent. 

[bd139]

I don't have to.

mnem
"A misspent youth is better by far than a wise & productive old age..." ~ Meat Loaf

I wish I did have to! 

[Mr. Scram]

Don’t need support. Just need it to work to start with  .

Mnem: there wasn’t a USB legacy mode selection in the BIOS unfortunately. Plugging it in different hold and problem solved so I’m happy.

As for ASrock vs gigabyte vs Asus, I doubt there’s a lot in it. Bar this issue it has been faultless and the ASrock board supports the newer CPUs fine so when I upgrade it’ll be fine.

The best motherboards that were on the market were the Intel ones before they pulled the plug on them. Totally bomb proof but not very fancy. I built nearly 200 PCs with them in and not one issue.

Coincidentally the Intel boards were more enterprise oriented or derived. Not a lot of shiny features to attract the RGB crowd but simple and solid kit. Obviously Intel gets it wrong too like they did with their Atom processors dying. Their response to incidents like those hasn't exactly been great.

No wonder too. Proper support costs a lot of money and no consumer is going to pay for that.