Fhiaba fridge

[Terry - Somerset]

I'm sorry Terry, again you are mistaken. One thing in favour of Win 10 is the fact that even printers that are 10+ years old still 'find' suitable drivers. I'm using an old Brother laser printer that I've had since 2014, it came to me because the owner wanted 'a new one' because it was 5 years old. I run it on a Win 7 PC but write to it from Win 10, Win 7 (another) & XP units - the XP machine was the only one that needed a manual installation. Increased data volumes can be handled by larger or faster storage, ie. adding an SSD will speed up data transfer dramatically and that can be done easily.

I am sure this is entirely possible if you have the underpinning knowledge and skill.

For most people other than professionals and (dare I say it) nerds it may be far quicker and less frustrating to simply accept that the cost of IT averages out at around £200 per year.

We all have different skills and interests - I enjoy cooking, but you may prefer to eat out rather than consume the inedible, I may find fixing/servicing my own car satisfying but you may prefer to take it to the man down the road who does these things.

The big risk for an amateur is disabling something that just about works through an inappropriate keystroke. Personally I am happy to upgrade as required (typically every 5-7 years) rather than master the struggle with arcane jargon and recalcitrant operating systems.

 

[J-G]

For most people other than professionals and (dare I say it) nerds it may be far quicker and less frustrating to simply accept that the cost of IT averages out at around £200 per year.

I'll accept that I am both Professional and Nerd (I don't have a problem with that) but more important 'frugal' - some would say 'tight-wad'!

We all have different skills and interests - I enjoy cooking, but you may prefer to eat out rather than consume the inedible, I may find fixing/servicing my own car satisfying but you may prefer to take it to the man down the road who does these things.

It so happens that I also enjoy cooking and seldom eat out. I used to fix my own cars, initially an Austin 7, then A35, Ford Prefect, Triumph Herald .... etc. that was before I bought 'from new' -- now I even get the garage to fit a new battery.

Why is it that Microsoft changes something

It's all down to revenue stream (and the ideology that promotes 'I want the latest') - which brings us back to the original thread and built-in obsolescence - though in the case of Fhiaba it seems that they don't even want the extra revenue that spares can bring.

 

[Spectric]

I used to fix my own cars, initially an Austin 7, then A35, Ford Prefect, Triumph Herald .... etc. that was before I bought 'from new' -- now I even get the garage to fit a new battery.

You are giving away your age, sounds like you are just about a pre-boomer!! I worked on Heralds, Hillmans and such but not Austin 7's previous and I think you do get to an age that you have different interest that float your boat and fixing a car .

When there is a demand from people so that a third party software house like Stardock can sell you the classic startmenu that Microsoft deemed old hat and removed in Windows 10 then they are not in tune with there customers, but do they care. Another demise has been the RS232 ports, aka serial ports and now you have USB, so now you need interface cables if you want to interface RS232 devices to your Pc, all my test gear has been 232 because it is a simple interface that also poses no security threats. Talking about printer drivers, coming from an embeded software background it is amazing that drivers are now 25 + mega bytes when they used to be delivered on a floppy disk that came with the printer and were no where near 1 mega byte, looks like even software is suffering from obesity.

 

[J-G]

The Austin 7 cost me £2 - yes 480d ! - in 1957 as a non-runner - it came from a fellow apprentice and I stripped the engine to the last nut and bolt and re-built it. I learned a great deal from that exercise.

RS232 is still to be found on most 'standard' motherboards - just not as a 15 (or 25) pin 'D' socket on the I/O Panel - it's usually a 9pin connector that simply needs a ribbon cable to take it to the expansion port. I have one XP machine using RS232 to interface a Roland MDX-20.

Printer drivers are no longer just a means of converting the written word to a series of 'dots' - they also need to 'phone home' to reorder consumables and provide all manner of useless features that make the owner feel 'wanted'!

 

[D_W]

Not sure how reliable an austin 7 is, but when I was a kid (in the 1980s), the generation before would relay that they got their first cars for something like $25.

A couple of years later, my first car was $3000 used, which even now thinking back about what it was seems like a princely sum (it was a nissan sentra with about 60k miles at a time when the current expectation of 200k miles out of cars was by no means close to normal).

I asked a friend's dad if the plymouth that he was talking about getting for $25 was a basket case, and he more or less said "no, it was about 10 years old and ran fine. The old lady who had it just bought another car". At that time, a part time job generally paid about $1-$1.50 an hour, so figure working half a week and having transportation (albeit a slow car with no ability to run highway speeds - much of the population back then never went above about 50 miles per hour, so the lower-end cars didn't have a tall drive ratio - just three speed on the column with no overdrive or a jello-ish two speed automatic.

 

[Fergie 307]

I am genuinely amazed that you can spend that much in a fridge, and then have it break down multiple times. Our current larder fridge is a Hotpoint, and we have a Beko freezer, both probably 15 years old and neither has ever missed a beat. Hardly premium makes but nice and simple. Innovative, cutting edge etc all to often euphemisms for unreliable unfortunately. We used to have a Bosch washing machine which was brilliant until the motor went. They wanted that much for a new motor we thought, after 12 years, might as well get a new one. Looked a Bosch again as the old one had been so good, I was appalled how badly made the new ones were by comparison with the old one. Bought Samsung in the end, and so far has proved very reliable. Eventually managed to get a second hand motor for the old Bosch, and still going strong at 20+ in the workshop washing horse stuff and overalls.

 

[clogs]

living outside the UK for 20 years or more.....warranty is a thing of the past.....every reason in the world to delay u...
hoping u'll just get fed up and buy another......
Had all the major makes and no, wont bother again....for those who wish to buy Bosch.....
a good friend in the white goods trade said...with Bosch , if it doesn't say made in Germany dont buy it....
we now buy white goods with as little add on's as poss.....wifey insist's on 1200 spin speed for the washer tho..
if it goes bad after 3 years just bin it and get a new one...a call out is €50 (in Crete)for the first 1/2 and they never have the part anyway....cant blame them for that tho.....
we had a Samsung American style fridge freezer, (new it was around £1400) after 5 years it used to ice up quite often, bought all the nec parts and sensers hoping to fix it....never happened, so when it frosted up after 5 weeks or so, just unplugged it and defrosted it the old way with the door open.....
it lasted another 6 years.....to get a guy out in France would cost almost as much as a replacement fridge/frez......
Here in Crete not quite impossible but notable brands are really priced out of the general market and generally everything is now Chinese made...like or lump it....
it does for us......
our holiday rental house just has to work....if a machine goes bad we have to buy new, cant afford bad reviews....

 

[AdamD]

A bit of a late addition to this thread.
However, I too have an AGA fridge which was made by Fhiaba, it was in the house I purchased and now has an intermittent fault in the top section only as the temperature changes from 5 degrees to 21 at random. Aga have denied all knowledge of it, despite me showing them an Aga delivery note from the Aga shop. (I found the manufacturer fro mthe circuit board inside).The first refrigeration engineer was unable to help, so maybe the manufacturers will be able to suggest someone - unless anyone here can?

 

[Spectric]

Just another case of badge engineering, these days you will not always get what you think you are getting and it is often better to look deeper into a product than just it's badge because at the end of the day a tuuuuurrrrd will always be a tuuuuurrrrd no mater what badge has been put on it. What I find more difficult to comprehend is why any manufacturer with a decent reputation would allow there brand to be associated with junk, it can only devalue themselves.

 

[AdamD]

To complete this, after a few attempts with the Italian manufacturer, by email and then by 'phone ("oh yes I saw your email and did nothing about it" was her response!) they gave me the details of their UK guy after the second 'phone call who couldn't have been more helpful, he talked through the repair with a local refrigeration engineer after sending the parts to me and I now have my fridge working again! Yay!
It is dissapointing that AGA were as much use as a chocolate teapot though.

 

[brokenfridge]

auto defrost is the normal problem both heater and sensor, ice maker started working slowly and then stopped altogether.
the picture is of the freezer condenser

did you ever get this fixed? i have the exact same problem. I replaced the evaporator sensor, but it still does this.

 

[brokenfridge]

To complete this, after a few attempts with the Italian manufacturer, by email and then by 'phone ("oh yes I saw your email and did nothing about it" was her response!) they gave me the details of their UK guy after the second 'phone call who couldn't have been more helpful, he talked through the repair with a local refrigeration engineer after sending the parts to me and I now have my fridge working again! Yay!
It is dissapointing that AGA were as much use as a chocolate teapot though.

do you know what was replaced? i've replaced the evaporator sensor but still no luck and i'm getting desperate.

 

[jim1950]

do you know what was replaced? i've replaced the evaporator sensor but still no luck and i'm getting desperate.

Hi, yes Kenny did fix it in the end, been working ok since sept. 21 but no ice and his only answer to that was "I don't even use the ice maker on my fridge I just buy it". He never told me what sensors he replaced but had to order them for Italy.
I will check his old messages to see if he makes any reference to them and if will let you know, good luck with it

 

[AdamD]

do you know what was replaced? i've replaced the evaporator sensor but still no luck and i'm getting desperate.

The fault was temperature sensors which become intermittent after a while and then fail, apparently, it's not an uncommon fault. Good luck withfixing yours!