Need help setting up printer on a second router

[quincy2002]

Any help would be appreciated. Here's what I want to do: I have the DLink DI-614+ router. Its working just fine. I have a second router (SMC 7004BR) not currently in use. The SMC router has a parallel printer port that I want to utilize so that my 3 PCs can use my printer. So I want to install the SMC router as a second router on the network and hook the printer (HP 722C) up to the SMC. My PCs are connected to the 614+ router. I'm using WinXP on all the PCs.

Here's what I've done so far: I disabled DHCP on the SMC and set it's IP address to be in the IP range of the DI-614+. The 614+ router is the router connected to the cable modem. I have a regular network cable going from one of the lan ports on the 614+ to a lan port on the SMC router. The cable is not a crossover cable (I don't have one of those). From any of the PCs I can access the SMC admin control panel via a browser. So I know I set the SMC's IP correctly.

Even though the PCs can see the SMC router I cannot get the printer to print. When I try to print a test page it pops up a failure to print message. When I set up the printer there were no error messages or any apparent problems. I set the printer up on a TCP/IP port (the IP is the IP of the SMC router).

All the instructions I found on the web indicate I need to use a crossover cable for this application. I don't have one, so I tried a regular cable. Since the PCs can see the router now I figured I was OK. Perhaps not though, since I can't print. I don't know if either of my routers have a lan port that can support both normal and crossover applications using a normal cable (I thought I read somewhere that some routers have this feature). Nothing in the routers' manuals indicate that they have such a port.

Any help/ideas would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[quincy2002]

up

 

[JackMDS]

First put one PC directly to the SMC and see if you can get it to print.

Make sure that you have the printer drivers installed on all PCs.

Search SMC site they have a Big FAQ with instructions for the Printer server.

 

[quincy2002]

OK. I connected a PC directly to the SMC router, and I can print just fine. So the printer drivers/settings on the PC are OK (I set up the driver/settings per the SMC site directions). Then I reconnected the SMC downstream of the Dlink router and reconnected the PC to the Dlink as well to have the configuration I want to allow printing from all the PCs. The PC can access the SMC control panel, so I know the SMC router is present on the network. When I go to print, however, the printer queue says "printing" right away, but after 5 seconds or so the queue says "deleting" and then the print job disappears from the queue. No actual printing occurs. No error messages appear. The print job just goes away.

I am using a regular network cable to connect the SMC to the Dlink via LAN ports on each router. Do I need a crossover cable? Since my PC can see the SMC router I figured the cable I was using was OK.

Any thoughts? Thanks for the help.

 

[JackMDS]

This is really a long shut. I vaguely recall from long time ago something about the printer server address assignment.

The SMC original band is 192.168.123.xx

If you changed it to the band of the D-link, try the opposite.

I.e. return the SMC to its original IP band, and change the D-Link to fit the SMC.

BTW. The cable normally should be Crossover could, I think that the SMC is MDX.

 

[quincy2002]

Thanks for the idea, I'll try switching the IP addresses to fit the SMC original band. By MDX do you mean that the SMC should be able to automagically set itself to use either kind of cable? I think I'll scrounge up a crossover cable anyways and try it.

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

Why not use the SMC as the primary router and use the D-Link as the secondary router? I'm sure the print port will work that way.

FWIW, I found the print server function on the SMC routers to be terminally slow, so I ended up getting a separate print server because I wanted to print at a reasonable rate of speed.

 

[quincy2002]

Update. I still have the routers and PCs set up as in the original post. I found that in the SMC router control panel I didn't enter a gateway, so I put in 255.255.255.0. The PCs can now print to the printer, but only one time. After the first print job, when I try to print again, actual printing does not occur. No error messages or anything, just no printing.

After I reboot the router (either by cycling power or by using the control panel reboot button) I can again print - but only one time again. For some reason the router is getting stalled or something after that first print job.

Any ideas?

 

[StraightPipe]

cable?

it definately should be a straight cable. If one of your routers has an uplink jack use it instead, it will crossover the straight cable for you.

shtty explanation of xover vs straight.
all PC's are +
all routers/switch/hubs/modems are -
the uplink or LAN jack on the router is +

straight cables go + to -
crossovers go (+ to +) or (- to -)

PC to router is straight (+ to -)
so PC to pc (+ to +) needs xover and router to router needs Xover
unless you have the LAN/uplink jack to router, then its straight

hope i didnt confuse you

 

[quincy2002]

One, or both, of the routers must automagically sense what kind of cable I'm using because I can use either a straight or crossover and I get the same result ---> one print job only before I need to reboot the SMC so I can print again.

 

[StraightPipe]

thats very strange,

/shooting in the dark

maybe need a firmware updat and/or replace the bad router.

 

[quincy2002]

Thanks for the replies, guys. The SMC firmware was at v1.94a, but I saw on the SMC site that the lastest they had was 1.93s. I musta picked up the 1.94a at some point, but then they pulled it from their site. So I downgraded to 1.93s. Same problem though.
I've been changing various settings in the printer (HP 722C) properties but no luck yet.

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

Did you try swapping the routers so that the SMC was the primary?

 

[quincy2002]

Not yet. I'll try that after I mess around with printer and router settings some more.

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

I think the printer on the primary router will probably be the "silver bullet".