Need help setting up a printer

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Whitebread

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jan 28, 2002
Messages
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I just finished running some ethernet cables through my house. I dedicated one of those lines to my fathers Laserjet 4 printer. It has a number of RJ-45 jacks in the back, which I assume enable the printer to be connected to a LAN where it can be printed too. Now, I terminated the cables and tested them, they work fine. My first problem is that the connection light on my netgear switch is not lit. Anyone know why? After I will probably need help adding the printer to each computers list of printable printers. And, if you guys need pics of the jacks on the printer, I can provide them.

As soon as I connected a cable to the second jack on the printer, it printed a page with about 5 very small symbols, if that's of any consequence.

Extended Systems ESI-3280 is the name of the "switch" in the LaserJet. It has 8 ports.

All of this hardware is old. That extended systems device couldn't be found on their website and HP has limited information about setting up this printer for printing across a network.

HELP!!
 
Play around with the menu button till you can find where to input an IP address, Subnet Mask, and Default Gateway. The IP can be any address in your IP range, if you are using the standard private class C with a home router, it will either be 192.168.0.x or 192.168.1.x, and your subnet mask would be 255.255.255.0. The default gateway is the router's ip address.

Once that's all configured, open up a DOS window and then try to ping the address. If the ping is successful, then you can install the printer. Printers --> Add Printer --> Local Printer (uncheck the automatically detect and install my p-n-p printer) --> standard tcp/ip port --> printer name or IP address.

You should be able to figure it out with that bit of info. =)

Good Luck!
 
You can do a cold reset on the printer and it will wipe all the settings in the jet direct. By default its gonna look for a Bootp/DHCP server to get and address. Give it around 5 minutes.
After the minutes are up print a config page and note the IP address (if the above is correct, that you do have some way to handout IP address). Telnet to the thing ie. telnet x.x.x.x and change whatever you want. You can alway's give it a static IP at this point if you want. After that setup a local IP port on everymachine you want to print from and run a test print. Everything should work fine.
 
Through some searching, I found how to add a printer that has an IP, basically what you guys said here. The problem is that, the build in print server isn't even being reconized as a device on the network. My switch's activation lights don't come on when I plug in the ethernet cable attached to the printer, its as if it's not even there.

Also, I looked through the printer's manual, printing to it via ethernet seems to be something independent of the printers functions as it mentioned nothing about network integration.
 
Whitebread said:
Through some searching, I found how to add a printer that has an IP, basically what you guys said here. The problem is that, the build in print server isn't even being reconized as a device on the network. My switch's activation lights don't come on when I plug in the ethernet cable attached to the printer, its as if it's not even there.

Also, I looked through the printer's manual, printing to it via ethernet seems to be something independent of the printers functions as it mentioned nothing about network integration.
Click to expand...

I would print a config page from the printers control panel cuz somethins fishy. If your not getting link lights printing to an IP won't help you any.

I'd bet that jet direct thing isn't working anymore - atleast not like you expect it to. Look at the config page and see if it shows the network device anywhere and if it does it should show the IP its grabbed and stuff.

Also, try setting the port on your switch/router to 10MB half duplex - I seem to remember some print devices having probems auto negotiating.
 
You're not using a managed switch or router setup are you? If you're not, you can't change the link speed of the printer from auto to 10mbps/half.

Have you tried using a crossover cable to connect the switching printer server to the netgear switch? On auto mdi/mdi-x devices like your switch it shouldn't mattter when connnected to a newer device, but the switched module in your printer may not support auto mdi/mdi-x.

Worse to worse, if you can't get anywhere with it, I'd suggest buying a used 10baseT JD card from EBay.

Good Luck!
 
The config menu in the printer provides to options as to networking or interfacing with the printe server "card" that is built in. So even if the print server card grabbed an IP, the printer wouldn't know it. Only think that I think could work now is trying a crossover cable or a new card.

And no, I don't have a managed swtich or router.
 
Cross over cable isnt gonna work. Get a new print server.
 
Whitebread said:
The config menu in the printer provides to options as to networking or interfacing with the printe server "card" that is built in. So even if the print server card grabbed an IP, the printer wouldn't know it. Only think that I think could work now is trying a crossover cable or a new card.

And no, I don't have a managed swtich or router.
Click to expand...

Did you print the config page or did you just poke around in the config menu? I'm guessing the latter. Print out the config page - it tells you lots about the printer including page count and installed options (like network devices). I"m trying to remember how to print it on a LJ4 but drawing a blank.

Is it possible that your network card is token ring?
 
Since this is older it could be a possiblity that the card in question is token ring. If this is the case your 10/100 network will not detect the card.
 
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