Wireless Printer Won't Connect to Laptop

Comments

• chrisjr Posts: 33,282

  Forum Member

  ✭✭✭

  09/07/12 - 20:18 #2

  How are you trying to connect to it? Are you trying to connect directly from laptop to printer? Or are you using a router as an intermediary?
  
  What make and model of printer is it? Without that vital bit of information it is impossible to be specific. There is no standard way to configure these devices so unless we know what it is we cannot say "press this" , "hit this bit with a sledgehammer" or anything like that

  0
• oilman Posts: 4,529

  Forum Member

  ✭✭✭

  12/07/12 - 01:27 #3

  A common problem is setting up ip adresses.
  
  The following assumes laptop connects to a router using dchp for automatic ip for laptop and printer has own wifi.
  
  It is best to give printer a static ip adress which is on same subnet as your router. Eh 192.168.1.5 where subnet is third number typically 1.
  The 5 could be any number but low numbers are usually good.
  
  You then print to the fixed ip adress. Of course laptop needs iprinter drivers and needs to be setup to print to ip adress.
  
  If you allow router to set address of printer via dchp, laptop will not know it unless you tell it. Problem is ip can change automatically
  
  Unfortunately a lot of setup programs use dchp for the printer as that is easier for the user . This is ok probably if you have a fixed network but once you start being more variable e.g. laptops, smartphones etc it is difficult to guarantee router will always serve same ip address. Hence best to set static ip. More difficult but more robust.

  0