wireless networking and wifi printer help

[Vurbal]

I've currently got an HP LaserJet 4050dn here in IT, and a standing threat to shoot anybody that tries to wander off with it.

-Stoic Joker (January 22, 2015, 03:58 PM)

That is my main workhorse too. Got it used from a client with 65K pages worth of use on it for $50. It's still going strong. The 4xxx series was one of the best HP ever produced IMO. I also had a LaserjetIII (with Postscript cartridge!) that I bought new when it first came out. That "boat anchor" performed yeoman’s service right up until the day a client's 3-year old kid (an out of control little brat if there ever was one!) yanked the PS cartridge out and then rapidly plugged it back in three or four times in a row while the unit was running. After that, it would only print two pages at a time before a print job timed out. It got replaced by a Laserjet 4 the following week.

-40hz (January 22, 2015, 08:45 PM)

When I ran (or rather was) the IT department for a rural water utility, I spent more than a few hours arguing with the people who used our 4050 because they wanted a new printer. It started life as the billing printer and got handed off to their department after being replaced by a 9150. They eventually  managed to get their way just because they needed to be able to run 2 print jobs at a time. IIRC I got them a pair of 4250s for that.

Since I couldn't stand to let it go to waste, I shuffled it over to the woman responsible for the members' monthly newsletter. In reality, the only reason everybody hated it was the noise. I guess hated the noise too, but it was the one coming out of their mouths.

Personally, I would have traded the lot of them for another 4050. It was more productive than all of them combined. It also never helped defraud the FDA out of $45 million dollars.

[Stoic Joker]

In reality, the only reason everybody hated it was the noise.

-Vurbal (January 23, 2015, 09:25 AM)

After a few 100,000 pages the (plastic) drive gears tend to get a bit (worn) noisy, but the gear kit and labor aren't that bad IIRC (I never had to pay for one, but I did several). Otherwise they're a very quiet printer. Mine sits right next to the phone:

I had a LaserJet 4100 and loved it - It had 1.2 Million Pages on it..
It got replaced by a LaserJet 4015, and I hated the noisy thing - Couldn't hear on phone.
Now I have LaserJet 4050 - with good gears - and I can once again hear on the phone just fine.

[Vurbal]

IIRC that was the conclusion I reached after some research, but it never got high enough on my list to try it out. Knowing how things worked there, they would have kept demanding a new printer anyway. Wasting money was sort of a culture, at least among the privileged few who were favorites of the president.

The president was also behind the fraud. Big surprise.

That does remind me of another reason I love HP's enterprise products so much. When you have a problem, you can usually find the solution online in a few minutes.

[elvisbrown]

We recently bought a Brother wireless printer in the hope that we could print from any of several laptops and other devices we have.

Ha! Nice idea but!

The Windows laptops consistently lose the connection to the printer (can't find printer) and the only solution is to remove the printer then go through the set-up instructions again.

Then I bought a Macbook Pro and bugger me if it doesn't find the printer immediately and do something in the background for a few seconds then start printing. Never bloody fails!

To me it made it clear that it is a Windows issue. If a Mac can get it right every time why can't Windows?

[Stoic Joker]

The Mac is reliant on the rather loquacious Bonjour protocol, which frequently needs to be disabled on Windows networks because it quite consistently screws up name resolution.

The much more sedate windows name resolution (NetBIOS) frequently suffers at the hands of overzealous security software blocking the name broadcasts causing them to not resolve. Typically this is mitigated by using a static address for the printer, and pointing the print driver's port at the static address.

Other possibility is the very not ready for prime time WSD port technology that causes a 20-45 second lag in the print jobs...or just fails causing much anguish for all. We -(or more specifically I)- do not allow printer installs to be left with (the sadly now default) WSD ports because of the almost 100% failure rate of the technology.

Note: Failure rate above is based on the number of time something either didn't connect frequently, or just started lagging bad enough to piss people off, within a month of the initial install. Most people snap in the 10-15 second range.

[4wd]

The much more sedate windows name resolution (NetBIOS) frequently suffers at the hands of overzealous security software blocking the name broadcasts causing them to not resolve. Typically this is mitigated by using a static address for the printer, and pointing the print driver's port at the static address.

-Stoic Joker (March 03, 2015, 07:04 AM)

 

You have just answered a problem I was having with a friend's network printer ... have a beer on me 

[wiiiindy]

Go to a Goodwill resale store or equivalent and pick up a perfectly good G router for $10 or less.  Linksys WRT54G's seem to be hitting these stores in large numbers and I had one for years and never had a problem.  It is fast enough for printing. If it doesn't work Goodwill takes returns - if you don't wait too long.

As others said, cable the printer direct to the router and eliminate any wireless issues from that leg.