Broadband connection, network printing

Question

I have two questions, one more curiosity driven, the other more important. I have a Dimension 8300 hard-wired to a 1184 True Mobile wireless router. A Lexmark Z42 printer is connected via USB. Internet connection is through an ADSL modem connected to the router. An older computer running Win98 SE is networked with the Dimension using the 1180 USB adapter. First, the curiosity. Under 'Network Connections' on the 8300, I can see the broadband modem. The description underneath shows the name of the ISP, then 'Disconnected, Firewalled WAN Miniport (PPPOE).' It's the 'Disconnected' part that I don't understand. There is no problem with Internet access from either computer on the network, so what's disconnected? A more important problem is that I can't print from the remote PC. I get the message 'Can't communicate with the printer'. The remote PC (running Win98 SE) can see both the host PC and the printer through Network Neighborhood. Files can be sent from the remote to the Shared Documents folder on the host. The remote PC has the proper Win98 driver and was set up for network printing. The printer port is set to the printer on the host PC. At the moment, the host PC can see the remote PC, but no folders on the remote PC are designated as shared. Is this perhaps the problem? Does the printer need to communicate back to a particular folder on the remote PC?

volcano11 · Answer

No, you don't need to have any folders designated as shared folders on the remote PC in order for it to communicate with the printer. Since the host PC is running XP, have you checked to make sure that the XP firewall is disabled. The XP firewall will not block sharing of the Shared Documents folder, but it will block access to any other folder and will block access to the printer.

Steve

PurpleQuill · Answer

Thanks for your comment, Steve.

Here's what I've done. On the host PC there are two listings under Network Connections. One is the Local Area Network (Intel (R) Pro/100 VE Network Connection), which I assume is the ethernet card in the computer. This has the Internet Connection Firewall disabled. The other is the broadband modem that is connected to the router. Here the ICF is enabled. I tried turning off ICF for the modem as well, but still no luck.

volcano11 · Answer

I don't understand why you have two network connections. Do you have two ethernet cards in the computer? Normally with a router, there should only be one connection. How is this all connected together? The router should be connected to the broadband modem through its WAN or Internet port. The computers should be connected either to one of the LAN ports on the router or through the wireless adapter, yet you say one of the computer is connected to the Dimension through the USB adapter. Are you running Internet Connection Sharing? If so, then you don't need it with the router. Perhaps if we first clear up this connection anomaly, or at least my understanding of it, we can get back to the problem at hand.

Steve

PurpleQuill · Answer

I received the following message today from Lexmark technical support, which appears to explain this problem: ' The Z42 is not an inkjet model that is supported in a network environment. Our inkjet printers that are supported on a network are limited to several factors. In a peer to peer environment, supported printers require like operating systems XP/XP or 98/98, thus no Windows 98/ME to XP/2000 shares etc. The reason for this limitation is that the Z42 is a host based printer that uses an operating system dependent datastream.  This datastream will be different for different versions of Windows.'   For the record, the Dimension 8300 is connected via ethernet cable to the 1184 router and the router is connected to the ADSL modem also via ethernet cable. The Win98 computer is connected to the router via the 1180 USB wireless adapter.

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

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