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Networking a multifunction printer

3K views 6 replies 2 participants last post by  jibberjabber 
#1 ·
Hi all. I have a Print server currently that is built in to my router, but it doesn't have USB compatibility. So my setup is like this: cable modem connected to wired router, port 1 of router connected to WAP, port 2 connected to desktop PC, WAP connected to laptop with PCMCIA card and printer connected to router with LPT cable. (port 3 and 4 are free).

I want to puchase a multifunction printer, but the problem with this is that I cannot use it with my current print server built in to my router. I would rather get a wireless router with built in print server, but will the multifunction printer be able to scan on the network as well as print or just print?

The Brother DCP 310CN's review says this...Sharing a printer across a network, whether wired or not, is relatively simple. Unfortunately, sharing a scanner is much trickier. You can't just plug your scanner and share it using Windows. Nor will most print-servers - devices that you use to share printers over a network - allow you share a scanner.

Brother has the answer. Its new multifunction device, the DCP-310CN has an integrated network port. This means you can plug it into your router or hub and share it with all PCs on your home or office network.


If this is true this means that I can plug this multifunction printer into a port on my router, and share it without buying a print server, right? Or does this mean that I have to connect to printer to my wan port (currently has my cable modem on it).

Please help.

Many thanks in advance.

_____________________
Windows XP SP2
512MB RAM
20GB HDD
Buffalo PCMCIA Wireless Card
SMC Barricade Router
Trust WAP
Surfboard Cable Modem
 
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#2 ·
According to what I see you buy this plug it into your router and you can scan and print to it. My thought is that its an integrated ethernet card and you install the drivers/client on all of the PC's that print to the printer and the client allows you to do the network scanning.

HP has many network scanning items like this but the one drawback is most of the scanners have to be hooked up to a PC and then you network the scanning to all the other PC's.

Personally I don't see much of an appeal for network scanning as you have to be by the scanner to feed it what you want to scan anyway.
 
#3 ·
LOL, oh yeah, that's true anyway!!!

OK, well thanks for that (that was quick)

I think I'll opt for a wireless router with print server and a plain old multifunction printer and I'll connect it to the router via USB and then plug the USB cable into the laptop when I want to scan.

What do you think?
 
#4 ·
Sounds great from my view. I still have yet to figure out what the point of remote scanning is. Personally I think a scanner on one PC that has access to a network share works 10 times better.

Heck if your Laptop has a docking station then you can just plug the USB in there and your ready to scan when you drop it in the dock. Other than that I don't think connecting 1 cable is really hard.
 
#6 ·
Do not put it in WAN. It has to be on your local network for your local PC's to see it. What you will do is you will hook it up to an open ethernet port and then you will use the supplied software (or telnet) to setup that IP. Some allow for DHCP but I abhor DHCP print servers.

The reason I don't like them is I like to use the standard TCP/IP port on the OS and with that you have to hard code an IP so you may want to make it a static IP.
 
#7 ·
DHCP has always been a bit dogdy. It is supposed to make setting up a network easier, but it didn't for me. When I set up DHCP, the PCMCIA card would keep losing the IP address assigned to it by DHCP everytime I reboot! Nightmare. So in the end, I had to "hard code" the IPs as you say, and now it works everytime, anytime.

I cannot see how other PCs would see it, because on my router I cannot see other computers connected to the router (as all they do is share the Internet connection).

Anyway, no matter, because I am buying a router with a USB port (built in print server).
Thanks for the help Stumped (you are definately not stumped!).
 
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