Great paperweight, horrible scanner

I want to let you know about the horrible experience I had with HP's 5590 Scanjet Flatbed scanner. I am a network admin on a LAN with about 100 users. We needed a scanner to be able to convert documents digitally for emailing, archiving, or for use with the digital faxing software. We purchased this product for around $300 because it was the entry level pricepoint in this category. We don't do a TON of document scanning, but we do enough to put the machine to good use.

When we first got it, very few users were aware of it so it's usage was light, maybe 1 or 2 documents a day - but as word spread of it's availability and uses, people began sending more and more documents to scan.

Unfortunately, this scanner was not up to the challenge. It comes with a 50 sheet ADF (automatic document feeder) so that you can load up the document, press a button and let it do it's thing. This is fine if you only want to do one or two small 15 page documents, every half-hour or so. If you try to do any more than that the scanner cuts off mid-page halfway through the stack so you are forced to cut the power to the scanner and reset it.

According to tech support at HP this is due to the ADF overheating. They suggested I scan 15 pages, wait a while (5 minutes?) for it to cool down, scan 15 more pages, wait a while, scan 15 more, rinse and repeat.

Needless to say this is not only stupid, but a productivity nightmare. Users on my LAN have much better things to do than to take 3 hours to scan a 150 page document.

Avoid this scanner like the plague - don't let the lower price suck you in! Also be aware that some of the more expensive HP scanners have similar ADFs which I would imagine have the same overheating problem as this one does.