Help with a frozen HP Photosmart 720 camera please!

June 16, 2004 2:19 PM

My digital camera is frozen. (more inside, of course.)

My HP Photosmart 720 just quit working the other day. The lens is frozen in a partially-out position, and turning it on and off no longer retracts and extends the lens. I hear a faint rapid clicking as the motors try to move the lens. Replacing the batteries and doing a power reset doesn't help.

It was working fine up until the moment when it abruptly quit. Any ideas?

Barring any ideas, any recommendations for a repair place in NYC?

posted by Vidiot to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

Take this with a grain of salt, but I have a Canon S30 and the same thing happens often. There is probably a piece of sand stuck somewhere in the chasis. Repairing it would probably cost more than the value of the camera. My solution: shake it like a polaroid picture. A few violent shakes and same solid thunking against the flat of my palm usually gets things going again. YMMV.
posted by tcaleb at 3:52 PM on June 16, 2004

repair technique # 1
(always worth a shot)
posted by milovoo at 4:14 PM on June 16, 2004

This happened to me. We weren't able to shake it loose the second time.

No more HPs for me.

s
posted by answergrape at 6:55 PM on June 16, 2004

I just had the same problem with my Canon A70. In my case it worked after changing the batteries (even though the batteries I was using had plenty of charge left) but I'm worried it will happen again.
posted by JoanArkham at 7:45 AM on June 17, 2004

my HP camera died as well, i was able to get the pictures of with a card-reader (25 bucks from office depot), but the camera never worked again, it seemed like more of an OS problem than a physical problem with mine.
posted by yeahyeahyeahwhoo at 9:50 AM on June 17, 2004

Response by poster: Hmmm. Shaking it doesn't seem to help. Any ideas for repair places in NYC? Is it even worth repairing? How is HP's own support?
posted by Vidiot at 11:20 AM on June 17, 2004