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We have two wireless HP printers at home which we all can print to. Four laptops and one desktop with a wireless card all can print to these printers. I was able to install both printers on my daughter's Toshiba when it was new but now, she can't print to either from her machine. I removed the devices and added them back but it won't even print a test sheet.
The portable one seems to have a habit of changing its IP address so from time to time, one of us will not be able to print to that. We have been able to figure out that reconfiguring the IP address in the port settings fixes the problem. The larger HP (an Officejet 8500) is more stable in that it doesn't change its address since we got it.
I made sure the ports have the correct IP addresses of both printers by comparing it to the one on my laptop. I downloaded drivers from the HP website just to make sure I'm not missing anything.
Her Toshiba is running Win7 64-bit and she can connect to the internet without a problem. I can't figure out what else could have changed...it seems her laptop is not communicating with the printers.
I always assign printers static IP addresses so they can't change. The software is supposed to cope with changing addresses, but as you've found out, it often doesn't. Even when everything is setup 100% correctly, HP's horrible network printer drivers often fail to work. If you uninstall & reinstall a few times, light some incense and sacrifice a chicken, the HP gods may actually get off their butts and do their job. Next time, don't buy HP if you want it to work. I've had better luck with the drivers built into Win7 than with what HP supplies on their site.
On my wireless HP printer I have to sign in to the host PC in Win XP home's "My Network Places" and click "view workgroup computers". Then put in name and password. Then it will work. I don't know why since it is not connected to the host computer at all. It works though. I don't know about Windows 7 since I don't have that. In Ubuntu, it just finds the printer without needing to sign in to a host computer first. I wonder if Windows 7 will work doing it's version of how I do it on XP?
What i did was hardwire the printer and then allowall the computeres to share it. It makes not difference if the computer is wireless or not. It works as long a it can "see" the printer.
As an aside one of the problems I find with printers is they are not all backward compatible.I have three 6- 8-year old computers (2 Mac, 1PC.), a Dell laptop, along side a 1-year old Mac using the same*printer; three computers are wireless. I never found HP to particularly friendly to any older geration software.*The last 3 printers I purchased were Epson. The best of any printer I owned has been the home office Epson Workforce.Maybe I have just been lucky.
The one thing I learned long ago in the retail trade is that most companies offer three grades of product (good better and best) whether it is computer, appliances, mattress or furniture. I usually buy mid-grade reiiable products from well respected companies that have a liberal return policy and knowledgable*sals staff. .
I've done exactly just as suggested..turned the printer into a network printer and had the Toshiba be part of the network. It can now at least print. Still confounds me that this problem was only happening to the Toshiba laptop and not to the other 4 laptops (2 HPs and 2 Dells) as well as the desktop with a wireless card. I guess something about the 2 cards not wanting to talk to each other after a while...
Do I go into my router Setup and enter the IP address of the printer in the box that says Static DNS1 (or 2 or 3)? Can I leave the main setting to Automatic Configuration DHCP and just enter the printer address on the Static DNS window? I don't know enough about this and don't want to mess up connections to the other PC's in the house. I just want to fix this movable address on the one wireless printer.
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