Wireless laser printer setup question.

Boomyal

Boomyal

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Will a wireless printer accept signals from two different wireless routers? Here is the deal. Mrs B's laptop currently accesses her Brother printer via a wireless router that is not hooked to the internet. She runs her laptop off of our inhouse wired network, just like my PC's.

My Win7 laptop is not connected to the wired network but accesses the internet using our DSL combination modem/wireless router. Trying to take the line of least resistance, I would like to run the printer setup on my laptop and have it communicate with the printer via the same router that it uses to access the internet.

I maybe could change my wife's laptop to operate the printer off the same modem/router but I do not want to deal with that now. It may also cause a conflict considering she is hooked to a wired network and the modem/router is hooked to the internet.

So for now, I would hope to leave hers be and just install the printer setup on my laptop and have it operate her printer alongside her other setup. What say you all?
 
NYBo

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Re: Wireless laser printer setup question.

Won't work. Your printer needs a unique IP address that will make part of one network or the other, but not both at the same time.

Why is your wife using a wired connection when she clearly has a wireless adapter??:confused:
 
Boomyal

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Re: Wireless laser printer setup question.

NYBo said:
.....Why is your wife using a wired connection when she clearly has a wireless adapter??:confused:
Click to expand...

'cause I got up in the attic, years ago and hung by my knees, upside down, and ran cat5 cables all throughout the house and down thru the walls to professional looking outlet boxes.:p Besides all that, the wired network is faster and more reliable than the wireless.

But thanks for the info on the printer being able to receive instructions from two different routers. I did not understand the mechanics of it.
 
briangcc

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Re: Wireless laser printer setup question.

The printer I assume has a USB port on it correct? If so, just get a wired print server (10/100 to USB). Configure that for the wife's wired connection and then re-ip the wireless for your DSL connection. Printer is now available on (2) different networks. Done like dinner.
 
Boomyal

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Re: Wireless laser printer setup question.

briangcc said:
The printer I assume has a USB port on it correct? If so, just get a wired print server (10/100 to USB). Configure that for the wife's wired connection and then re-ip the wireless for your DSL connection. Printer is now available on (2) different networks. Done like dinner.
Click to expand...

If I get your meaning Brian, it would be to connect Mrs B's laptop to the printer via USB? Unfortunately, cannot do. The printer cannot be located near her Laptop and the Printer cannot be located near the wired network connection points. This is why we got the wireless printer in the first place.

If I switch the wireless printer to be accessed off the DSL modem/wireless router, then the Mrs could not use her cable connection. If I dial my laptop to the current non-internet wireless, then I could not use my laptop on the DSL modem/wireless router for internet connection.

Seems to be a catch-22. I think my only hope was that the printer could receive instruction from two different wireless routers and that has pretty well been answered.
 
RustyShackleford

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Re: Wireless laser printer setup question.

You may be ableto if you give both wireless routers the same SID, IP pool, encryption type, and passkey. That's how companies do it with multiple access points in a very large building. It sounds like you are making this much more complicated than it needs to be though.
 
Boomyal

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Re: Wireless laser printer setup question.

RustyShackleford said:
You may be ableto if you give both wireless routers the same SID, IP pool, encryption type, and passkey. That's how companies do it with multiple access points in a very large building. It sounds like you are making this much more complicated than it needs to be though.
Click to expand...

I think a key for me is to know what would take precedence, an ethernet cable connection or a wireless connection. If Mrs B's cable connection will take precedence over her wireless connection and still allow that wireless connection to communicate with the printer, then I would just shut off one of the wireless routers and set the printer up to be accessed through the one wireless router for both laptops. The point is that I would like my wife's laptop to still access the internet via the cable.
 
Tail_Gunner

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Re: Wireless laser printer setup question.

thought about this for a while...any computer can hook to a wirless device of any kind..that is why we have encryiption coding to protect wirless. Just add a printer and if the comp cant see it then it (printer) its out of range
 
RustyShackleford

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Re: Wireless laser printer setup question.

Tail_Gunner said:
thought about this for a while...any computer can hook to a wirless device of any kind..that is why we have encryiption coding to protect wirless. Just add a printer and if the comp cant see it then it (printer) its out of range
Click to expand...
No... it doesnt work that way. Even without encryption you cant just wirelessly connect to some other computer or device simply because it has a wireless connection and is near you. It's not a CB.
 
v1_0

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Re: Wireless laser printer setup question.

Boomyal said:
Will a wireless printer accept signals from two different wireless routers? Here is the deal. Mrs B's laptop currently accesses her Brother printer via a wireless router that is not hooked to the internet. She runs her laptop off of our inhouse wired network, just like my PC's.

My Win7 laptop is not connected to the wired network but accesses the internet using our DSL combination modem/wireless router. Trying to take the line of least resistance, I would like to run the printer setup on my laptop and have it communicate with the printer via the same router that it uses to access the internet.

I maybe could change my wife's laptop to operate the printer off the same modem/router but I do not want to deal with that now. It may also cause a conflict considering she is hooked to a wired network and the modem/router is hooked to the internet.

So for now, I would hope to leave hers be and just install the printer setup on my laptop and have it operate her printer alongside her other setup. What say you all?
Click to expand...


The first thing to do is to sit down and 'draw out' your home network setup. Based on what you have written, it sounds like you have three sub-networks: one LAN and two WI-FI ones. To repeat back what you have said: you have one WI-FI subnet that services the printer and Mrs B's laptop, one LAN network that also connects to Mrs B's laptop and your desktops, and one WI-FI subnet that your laptop connects to.

What needs to exist is some connection between the two WI-FI subnets, as both your laptop and the laser printer can only connect to one WI-FI subnet at a time (unless your laptop has two WI-FI cards..). It may be as simple as hooking up your LAN to your second wireless router (the one the laser printer is connected to) and setting it to be a wireless access point (instead of a wireless router).
 
Boomyal

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Re: Wireless laser printer setup question.

v1_0 said:
The first thing to do is to sit down and 'draw out' your home network setup. Based on what you have written, it sounds like you have three sub-networks: one LAN and two WI-FI ones. To repeat back what you have said: you have one WI-FI subnet that services the printer and Mrs B's laptop, one LAN network that also connects to Mrs B's laptop and your desktops, and one WI-FI subnet that your laptop connects to.

What needs to exist is some connection between the two WI-FI subnets, as both your laptop and the laser printer can only connect to one WI-FI subnet at a time (unless your laptop has two WI-FI cards..). It may be as simple as hooking up your LAN to your second wireless router (the one the laser printer is connected to) and setting it to be a wireless access point (instead of a wireless router).
Click to expand...

I just cannot be sure that my question is understood. I do know that the laptops can only deal with one wireless source at a time. I have come to understand the the wireless printer also cannot receive commands from two different wireless routers.

My question is this. If I turn off the current wireless router, that is not connected to the internet but is used to communicate with the printer, then reconfigure the printer to 'talk' to the DSL combination modem/wireless router that my own laptop uses, will the Mrs's laptop still operate on the ethernet cable.

Her laptop is currently, simultaneously using the ethernet cable for internet and the wireless router (not connected to the internet) to talk to her wireless printer. It by using the DSL modem/wireless router (which is connected to the internet) will that cause any issues with the ethernet connection to the internet?
 
NYBo

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Re: Wireless laser printer setup question.

I'm still not following why you don't configure your wife's laptop to use a wireless connection to the router with Internet and printer access and eliminate the other wireless router altogether.:confused:
 
Boomyal

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Re: Wireless laser printer setup question.

NYBo said:
I'm still not following why you don't configure your wife's laptop to use a wireless connection to the router with Internet and printer access and eliminate the other wireless router altogether.:confused:
Click to expand...

I do want to turn off the current printer wireless router (not connected to the internet) then switch her printer access over to the DSL modem/wireless router for printer access. I also want to keep her laptop connected to the ethernet cable for internet. I am wondering if their will be any conflict. Which route to the internet will her laptop take: the ethernet cable or the DSL modem/wireless router. That is my question.
 
NYBo

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Re: Wireless laser printer setup question.

Her wired connection is not through the wireless router, correct? The simplest solution (at least from here:redface:) would be to use just one router for both wired and wireless. If need be, you can connect an ethernet switch to the wireless router for additional ethernet ports, but let the router handle DHCP for the entire network.
 
Boomyal

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Re: Wireless laser printer setup question.

NYBo said:
Her wired connection is not through the wireless router, correct? The simplest solution (at least from here:redface:) would be to use just one router for both wired and wireless. If need be, you can connect an ethernet switch to the wireless router for additional ethernet ports, but let the router handle DHCP for the entire network.
Click to expand...

I guess I am not communicating effectively. Currently her laptop communicates with the DSL modem/wireless router via an inhome ethernet network. The DSL modem, as well as being a wireless router, also has 4 wired ports. One lead goes from the modem router ports to the inhome wired network. Her laptop is plugged into a jack that connects it back to that modem/router. At the same time, the wireless part of that DSL combination modem/router is active. I can access that signal with my laptop to get on the internet.

My hope is to shut down the wireless router (that is not connected to the internet and that my wife's laptop uses to 'talk' to her printer) and reconfigure the printer to respond to the signal from the DSL wireless router (which is connected to the internet). At the same time, I would like her laptop to continue to use the ethernet connection that she is currently using. With this done, I can configure my laptop, which currently accesses the internet via the DSL modem/wireless, to operate her wireless printer. I do not know how else to describe it.
 
hrdwrkingacguy

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Re: Wireless laser printer setup question.

Going to need a picture of what you have and what you want...I can't tell if you have one wireless router and one wired router or if you are saying both are wireless...I remember trying to help from previous threads...:eek:
 
Boomyal

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Re: Wireless laser printer setup question.

hrdwrkingacguy said:
Going to need a picture of what you have and what you want...I can't tell if you have one wireless router and one wired router or if you are saying both are wireless...I remember trying to help from previous threads...:eek:
Click to expand...

My setup has two wireless routers in current operation. One, the Belkin, is not connected to the modem. It is simply used by my wife's laptop to communicate with her wireless Brother printer. The other is the combination DSL modem/wireless router and 4 port wired router.

My wife's internet connection is via the wired wall jack that goes back to one of the wired ports on the DSL Modem/router. I would like to keep it like that. In the meantime, my laptop, which does not have access to any wired ports, accesses the internet via the the wireless part of the DSL Modem.

I want to turn off the Belkin wireless router and reconfigure the wireless printer to operate off the DSL modem/wireless router so that both my laptop and my wife's can access the printer. Right now, if I sign my laptop onto the Belkin Wireless to use the printer, I would have to log off the DSL wireless signal and would have no internet access.

My question is if my wife's laptop is logged on to the DSL Wireless signal (for access to the printer) AND connected to the DSL's wired ports, which internet connection will prevail. I am hoping it would be the wired connection.

I suppose I could just try it but I would not want to confuse things and blow a fuse!
 
briangcc

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Re: Wireless laser printer setup question.

Boomyal said:
If I get your meaning Brian, it would be to connect Mrs B's laptop to the printer via USB? Unfortunately, cannot do. The printer cannot be located near her Laptop and the Printer cannot be located near the wired network connection points. This is why we got the wireless printer in the first place.

If I switch the wireless printer to be accessed off the DSL modem/wireless router, then the Mrs could not use her cable connection. If I dial my laptop to the current non-internet wireless, then I could not use my laptop on the DSL modem/wireless router for internet connection.

Seems to be a catch-22. I think my only hope was that the printer could receive instruction from two different wireless routers and that has pretty well been answered.
Click to expand...


Nope...not close.

You have (2) networks with what I am assuming are different ip addresses and neither network can "talk" to eachother. Correct? If so, here's how you lay it out....

Network #1: SWMBO's network. Wired. Get a wired print server. There are plenty of them out there that will allow you to connect a USB printer to a network. That's exactly what you want. Configure the wired print server with the IP for the wired network your wife is on. The printer is now on the wired network and available throughout your house wherever you have a wired connection.

Network #2: DSL. Your network. Convert the wireless print server on the printer to an address on your network. You now have access via your second network.

You now have the printer on BOTH networks.

Now, if a wired print server isn't an option, you can look into a wireless print server. They are out there the last I checked and I do believe they will connect up to your printer via USB port.


**Please don't make me diagram this for you...my drawing skills rate somewhere below garden slug....my 3 month old son could probably do better!
 
hrdwrkingacguy

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Re: Wireless laser printer setup question.

Boomyal said:
My setup has two wireless routers in current operation. One, the Belkin, is not connected to the modem. It is simply used by my wife's laptop to communicate with her wireless Brother printer. The other is the combination DSL modem/wireless router and 4 port wired router.
Click to expand...

You have one modem/router combo with 4 ports + a belkin wireless router? is the belkin a long distance away? and does the wifes laptop have a wireless adapter?

You could set up the routers where instead of two 4 port routers you put a cable between them and they essentially become one 7 port router and you can use one to broadcast your wireless signal and you will have both routers on one network...This is what I recommended in the other thread...:eek:
 
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