Oh, to print remotely...

[ComBondRN]

This is a small office environment: a few PCs plugged into a Linksys router. Also plugged into said router is a Brother MFC-8840D.

I have used Brother's "Driver Deployment Wizard." It successfully detects the MFC over the LAN. I have then tried several versions of Brother drivers. Each time, they successfully install. The MFC appears in my printer listing and when I attempt to print to it, the items show up on its queue (the Windows printer queue on the local machine, that is). However, the queued items always fail ("Error - item failed to print").

Also, I've tried the various connection "modes" offered by the "Driver Deployment Wizard": LPR, NetBios, and IPP, and have tried port-forwarding from the router to MFC. However, as I don't understand the differences between those modes, there are likely other necessary steps which I did not take.

Any clever ideas or sage advice?


Cheers!

 

[Brazen]

Call Brother tech support?

Personally, I would forgo the "Driver Deployment Wizard" and just use the Windows add printer wizard. Choose to add a "local printer" and then create a new port of the type "Standard TCP/IP Port". The rest should be pretty self explanatory. If it asks you for the type of network card in the printer, you could try the Brother ones, and if for some reason they don't work (I checked, there 2 types listed for Brother) then try just using the default Generic Network Card.

Also, have you printed a diagnostics page from the printer to make sure the the network card is enabled and configured properly?

 

[nweaver]

yeah, local printer + TCP/IP port ftw, just have to know the IP of the printer.

Also, I assume you have the router as a router, and aren't plugging anything into the WAN port (except an incoming connection) right?

 

[ComBondRN]

Hot damn!

Thanks gents, I had used the Windows wizard, but hadn't taken the TCP/IP route. Followed the wizard, STILL didn't work, but then gave the printer a physical restart and voila!

Not to diminish the value of your advice, but it may just have been that I needed to turn the printer's power off and on to get it to respond no matter how I installed it... go figure.

Cheers!

 

[JackMDS]

Using the The "TCP/IP route" with consumers entry level networked printer do not work with many printers.

The drivers and network interface it too propriety and usuually needs the Brand's installation utility (wizard) for the initial settings.

ComBondRN make sure to configure the printer with static IP.