Today I bought an unused display Photosmart 3110 all in one printer from Staples in the UK for the princely sum of £10. it was sold as seen and the nice guy even retrieved a sealed set of ink cartridges to go with it. Bargain? No, not quite as it is missing a bezel that goes over the control panel. I believed this to be cosmetic but it turns out, quite unbelievably, that the printer will not work without this panel attached. It would appear to click into a little black 6 hole block on the right of the panel. All the buttons are directly connected to the printer so this bezel serves no other function but after setting the language it just warns me I need to attach the faceplate.
Now you might say. "what did you expect for a tenner?" but this was a £200ish machine at retail and it is perfect in every other way except for this.
Anyone know where I can find a replacement (I tried HP's site but no luck)or it there some service mode which might bypass the need for the bezel? Alternatively is there any way to 'short' it by plugging something in?
Desperate to get it working as it seems to be a nice bit of kit and a bargain to boot if I can get it working otherwise I will simply sell the inks on and skip the thing...shame.

I wonder also, is there a similar (current?) model with a similar bezel that I could get a replacement part for instead?

Any and all help appreciated guys.

I would guess your best bet would be to bypass it somehow. If installing the bezel trips some microswitches perhaps you can juryrig something to suffice. I doubt there would be any parts available even if the model was current. If the printer is new enough maybe you can warranty the thing?

I am looking at the block and it sits on a little PCB but there seems to be no contacts in the block at all...just what look like tiny screw/fixings at the bottom of each square hole-about the size of a pin head.

Shame that you cannot get a part for a model that is clearly not that old. Cheers though.

Not sure if it helps anyone solve this, but there seems to be quite a few models that have a similar looking bezel.

HP just replied telling me that thay have the part and, if covered by warranty, will be free. Bad news, looks like she quoted me the control panel for the C3110 all in one while mine is a Photosmart 3110....doh!