Losing shared printer connectivity on home network

Question

I have a problem losing the connection of shared printers in my home network (and thus being unable to print from a shared printer).

Here’s my setup: I have a home network with my principal computer (a Dell Inspiron 530 desktop) connected via Ethernet to a 2Wire home gateway (model 3800HGV-B). Two printers (an HP Laserjet 3500t and a Dell color laser printer) are connected to the Inspiron desktop via USB. Two remote laptops (both Dell, an XPS M1530 laptop and a Dell XPS Studio) are a part of the home network and are connected wirelessly to the 2Wire gateway (the two laptops share the two printers via printer sharing on the network).

Note: this problem only affects the M1530 laptop; the Studio works fine.

Everytime I boot up the M1530 laptop it will have lost its shared connection to the printers, which will be shown as “offline” and “not ready” (I’m running Windows 7 Home Premium on all 3 machines), and the icons for the printers under “Devices and Printers” will have been “grayed out” and are “Offline.” The only way I can restore the sharing connection and print from the M1530 is to reinstall the printers. However, the printers remain installed and available for printing from the laptop only until I reboot the laptop, at which time the sharing connections are again lost.

This (losing the sharing connection) happens every single time the laptop is booted up, either from a startup or a reboot.

The other laptop, the Studio (also running Windows 7) doesn’t have this problem. It “sees” the shared network printers which are available for printing and doesn’t lose its shared connection.

I’m using Norton 360 on all three computers, but the same problem arises even after I disable Norton 360. I’ve also blown away all of my printer drivers and reinstalled each one of them.

If you have any advice or suggestions for me, they would be very much appreciated.

Bob

Atlanta, GA

PudgyOne · Answer

Bob,

Try reading...

Allow a printer past Norton

And try these tweaks on all the computers involved. I do these tweaks on all the computers in my home.

Go to device manager(right click my computer, left click properties, left click hardware, left click device manager)

Go to the USB Controller section and click the + sign.

Go to each USB Root Hub and right click on it, left click properties, left click power management. Uncheck the box, allow computer to turn off this device to save power.

Restart your computer.

--------------------------------------

Go to device manager(right click my computer, left click properties, left click hardware, left click device manager). Click on Network and then right click on your wireless adapter, left click properties, power management. Uncheck the box, allow computer to turn off this device to save power.

Rick

bobgrout · Answer

Pudgy, thanks for responding. I'll try your tweaks this weekend.

With respect to the Symantec firewall issues, I specifically disabled the firewall and the antivirus portions of Norton 360, all to no avail. But I'll try the disable rules as set for in the link to Symantec.

I'll report back. Thanks.

Bob

PudgyOne · Answer

Bob,

The instructions are to a little older version of Norton, so it should get you in the close area to allow past the firewall. It is really preferred to use the firewalls but you just might want to disable all the firewalls while setting up the printer and turn them on one by one and make sure the communications remains.

In theory, if this works without the firewalls and doesn't when engaged, then you know that it has to do with the firewall settings.

Rick

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

Losing shared printer connectivity on home network

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