Inspiron Network printer problem

It's attached to the Mac, no?

If so, then it's going to be hard to find help here as, while many of us know windows well, few know anything but.

I'd try a Mac Forum (I have absolutely no idea how to share a printer with a Mac)

The router is a standalone device with the PC, Mac and Printer attached via the ethernet cables. I have also tried the network with just the PC and Printer attached, same problem - no printer! And yet the internet connection is fine.

I'm baffled and don't really know what to try next.

Again any help gratefully received.

Mac Man

Inspiron 5100, 2.66ghz, 512mb - Netgear DG834 router/firewall/modem - Minolta QMS 2350 colour laser printer

Message Edited by Mac Man on 11-26-2003 05:22 PM

Message Edited by Mac Man on 11-26-2003 05:24 PM

Message Edited by Mac Man on 11-26-2003 05:28 PM

If you run the Add A Printer wizard on the PC, choose to add a network printer, put the IP address of the printer in, then finish the wizard.  That should make it available for printing.  For more info, go to Start - Help and click the Index tab when the Help app opens, then type network printer in the search box and there are many entries to offer aid.

Thanks, Jon,

But I'd tried all the things you mentioned, so I tried changing the IP address of the printer, different cables and pinging it and it just won't show up on the network at all via any address! I have taken it up with Minolta now, so I hope they can come up with a solution.

Thanks again

Nigel

Macman

That is strange, but points to the printer not getting an IP address from the DHCP server or if assigned a fixed IP address, not in the range your network is using.  If it is fixed and unchangable, you'd have to change the router's LAN address and the range of IP addresses it issues to be in the range of the printer.

I've tried connecting through a 10/100 switch instead of the router but with no joy. Connected the router back up (the internet connection continues to work just fine). I've pinged all the various IP addresses, everything is recognised, except the printer. Minolta told me to change the IP address to 3 out of the range of the others (eg 192.168.000.008), still didn't work.

BTW The router address is 192.168.000.001; the Inspiron 5100 Broadcom controller shows the PC IP address as 192.168.000.002; the G4 is 192.168.000.003.

They then asked me to change the printer's subnet mask to 255.255.255.0 and to make sure the router address was 192.168.000.001 - still didn't work.

I've also pinged from my Mac G4 and it cannot see the printer via the IP address either, so I guess the problem is somewhere between the router and the printer. I've also used Farallon Ping which searches out nodes from the Mac and it can only see those listed above.

So, I'm still at a loss what to try next...

Nigel

Message Edited by Mac Man on 12-02-2003 01:24 PM

I'm not so sure the Minolta is working.  Try connecting a computer to the switch and the Minolta to the switch, assign the computer an address like 192.168.000.005 (as the printer is assigned .008) and try to ping it.  If it works, then disable DHCP on your router and assign IP addresses to your computers also and see if that clears it up - the printer may not like being on a DHCP network (doubtful) or the router may not be truly following DHCP rules (more probable).