Losing Network Printers (Home Network)

I'm sure this has an easy answer but I've not found it in any of my searches here...

I have a small network at home with 2 laptops running XP. Internet connection is currently via ISDN (no broadband available) so I'm using fixed IP addresses at home (192.168.0.1 for my laptop and 192.168.0.20 for my wife's). The 2 laptops can see each other.

I've 2 printers (a Brother HL1450 laser and an Epson Photo 750) which I want to transfer from an A/B switch on one laptop to the network. A new Netgear PS110 printer server was bought and seemed to install OK, and both printers were set up on both laptops and test prints made. Then, when I came to print a job on my laptop, no printer! The "Printers and Faxes" window reports, for both printers "Printer not found on server, unable to connect ".

Rerunning the setup wizard sometimes finds the printers and lets me run a print or two, then it's back to "Printer not found..." again. My wife's laptoip also seems to intermittently lose them, too.

All plugs and connections on the PS110 appear sound, and both printers are on (nor have they given me any problems when connected directly to my laptop).

I can connect to the PS110 via IE using its IP address (192.168.0.150) without trouble, and I can see the correct printer status and test them without problem. I've tried stopping ZoneAlarm - no change. Rebooting - no change to overall situation.

It appears that my laptop (either one) keeps forgetting where the printer server is - any things I should be looking at?

 

Following from my reasoning that it's the server name that's getting lost, I've created a lmhosts file with just the IP address and the server name (as written on the bottom of the PS110), and enabled lmhosts in my TCP/IP settings.

It initially looked like it fixed the problem, as the printers stayed around long enough to actually run a print job - even on when I hooked into the network this evening. But no - a few moments later, the "Printer not found on server, unable to connect" message was back.

 

Well, I've had the printers stay available for over an hour - so time to print. BAD move

Prints the first page OK (usually) but then messes up the next - either only gets halfway down the page or misses a line or two of text. And if I try to rerun the print, the next try is almost exactly the same.

The only clue is that Word doesn't complete the spooling until the first page has started to print (the little prining icon at the bottom of the window stays on p1).

In desperation, I've unplugged the laser from the PS110 server and plugged it straight into my laptop printer port. It means my wife has either got to plug her laptop into the printer if she wahts to print, or wait for me to get home - but at least I can print. Mind you, I'd like to get the system fixed so the printers run from the network.

Any help gratefully received.

 

Something to try would be to set all your network cards (PCs for sure and the Netgear print server if it will allow) from autosense for speed and duplexing to a fixed rate and all the same.

Start slow at 10Mbps half-duplex.

How are your network devices connected to each other? Switch, hub, what?

 

Newt,

They're all 100Mbps, connected via a 4 port switch. If the following actions haven't fixed my problem, I'll try your suggestions - thanks.

Since posting my latest missive, I had another search through Netgear's site and found a FAQ answer on garbled printing - change the handshaking from ack+busy to busy - tried that to no avail. However, I also noticed a comment about the PS110 having just a 64k buffer - their advice is not to the software they provide with the server to set up printers! This is after the bumf with the box says to use it.

Anyway, following their suggestion, I deleted the printers and both network printer ports; installed both printers on a local port; one at a time, went into the printer settings, created a new port for it on the PS110 and connected to that. It seems to have fixed the garbled print problem - at least when I switched off and went to bed around midnight last evening.

It's too soon to say if that's fixed everything - I'll wait too see how it fares over the next few days.

For anyone reading this, having a similar problem, the Netgear printer installation software is needed on each PC to allow you to set up the ports - but that's all. Even the admin software can be duplicated with IE - you just need to browse to the servers IP address.

Thanks again.

 

Steve - glad you are making progress.

I do still recommend fixing the NICs (and the print server if possible) to 100Mbps Full-duplex since the handshaking you get with the autonegotiate setting provides no benefits and at best, slows things down a little.

 

Newt,

Everything worked fine last night. I might look at fixing my wife's laptop at 100Mbps at some point - not a priority, though - I want to let everything settle down and work for a while

I can't change my laptop to 100Mbps as the other office network it hooks into is only 10Mbps (at least the port I hook into) - fine as I only use it for Internet access anyway.

Thanks again.

 

Question from some of my own ( self caused ) problems.

Is the switch SEPARETLY powered or does it get shut down when other thngs do.

I ask because I had problems when I first set up my 3 machine+printer LAN and added a 4 port switch to the mix of machines and Router.

Somehow I used the wrong ( changed ) power source for the Switch and Router and Printer and they got shut down. I had to redo ALL network connections.

BillyBob

 

We recently set up a wireless print server at work and found that we had to go into the Printer's properties > Advanced > Print Processor and change the processor to WinPrint (RAW). They work well that way.

Also found that bi-directional communication does not work, so have turned that off.

A third issue has been with an Excel macro that the printer doesn't like. The macro stops, but after that the printer does not work unless we unplug and replug. Have fixed the macro, but some of the older files still cause grief.

DRD

P.S. Printer is Lexmark X5100. Our Canon printer was not compatible with the print server. Another issue that we learned.

 

Billybob:
My printer server is powered from its own mains adapter - usually running all the time, alongside the network switch and ADSL router. However, it doesn't seem to mind getting powered down when I'm away for a few days.

Netdoc:
I've used default printer settings for both the Brother laser and Epson inkjet and, set up as above, they behave as though they were directly connected to either laptop on the newtork.

 

1st off. If USB is invloved count me out. I have all Cat5 equip.

And I do understand that every situation is different.

If the Router is a multi port one ( usually 4 I believe ) and you have 2 machines and 2 printers, why do you need a print server ?

I have 3 machines and a printer all plugged into the Router and use auto addressing and have had no problems. ( once I got it done right that is )

The only thing with this setup is that you will need to install the drivers on each machine.

When I did set up the new printer this way it has proven to be well worth it. No one machine depends on the other for anything.

I just have to remember to not shut certain things down. ( like I have done and knocked my Wife off line. ) She almost knocked me off my chair.

And a question just popped up.

If the Notebooks are indeed unlugged from ( lets say the Router ) when they reconnected are they put back on THE SAME CABLE that they came off of ?

I made a mistake one time was doing some much needed housecleaning ) and switched cables. I had to shut everything down and start over.

BillyBob

 

Billybob,

Nothing to do with USB. Both printers use standard parallel ports - the printer server I use has one ethernet port and two parallel ones; if the printers had built-in ethernet, I wouldn't need the server.

I've not tried swapping ethernet cables around but I wouldn't expect this to be a problem. The ADSL router provides local DHCP services but, as it only has one ethernet port, the switch (a 5-way) provides the cabling hub.

 

Printers question answered.

But I believe the Router does ( or may ) look for a certain address that goes with a certain machine. And if so, switching cables may not match up the MAC and the IP address.

As I said I have inadvertantly messed mine up. and I HOPE & PRAY that I do not do it again.

There may be some info Here that may help. It sure helped me understand networking a bit better.

BillyBob