Networking Printers
With the move, our network topography changed. At the old house, we had two isolated networks. We had 192.168.1.0/24 on the cable modem, and 192.168.0.0/24 on the DSL. The printers, file server, and desktops were on the cable modem network. Our laptops were on the DSL network via wireless connection. In order to print, we had to swap to the wireless network that was hooked up to the cable modem, or plug in a network cable.
With the new house, we just have DSL. This means that the 192.168.1.0/24 network has vanished, and we’re just using the 192.168.0.0/24 network. The laptops were already configured to work with the new network, so there was no trouble there. The three desktops that we own are going to be rebuilt. The plan is to take the biggest hard drives that we own, and put them into a single machine to act as a file server at the house. The remaining parts will be used to build out two machines that we’re going to sell or donate. This will get us down to one desktop as a file server, and two laptops.
One set of equipment that we’re keeping is the printers and the print server. The print server is an embedded device that has an RJ-45 jack, and two parallel ports on it. You hook it up to the network, configure it, install some custom software on your Windows desktop, and print over the network. It’s pretty slick.
The problem that I had last night was that the print server was on the 192.168.1.0/24 network at the old house, and I needed to move it to the 192.168.0.0/24 network on the new house. I knew that I needed to talk to the print server, so I pulled out my crossover cable. I used it to hook my laptop up directly to the print server. I changed my network settings to use the old 192.168.1.0/24 network, so that I could talk to the print server. I could see it just fine, but when I attempted to load the “advanced settings” in the configuration software, it would fail.
After fighting with it for about an hour, I called Netgear’s tech support. I waded through the prompts, and finally got to a person. He collected all of my information (serial number, name, phone, email, etc.), and then put me on hold. After about 5 minutes on hold, he came back and told me that my support period with them had expired a few years ago. I wasn’t surprised by this since I had purchased the print server many years ago. He told me that I could either use the web as support for free, use email as support for free, or talk to him to get the problem resolved on the phone for $33 and change. I declined his offer to spend my money, and decided to give it a go myself.
After getting off of the phone with the tech support person, I hit Netgear’s web site. A few searches, and some clicks later, I came across a knowledge base entry that said that the print server’s software would not work properly under Windows XP with service pack 2. That was the operating system that I was running, so I finally found out the problem. Fortunately, there was a fix. I had to download a newer version of the software, install it, and use it. Sounded simple enough.
I downloaded the software, virus scanned it, and started to install it. It detected my older software, and told me to remove it first. Easy enough. I removed the software, which required a reboot (go figure.) After the reboot, I tried installing the newer software, and it installed just fine. However, I had to reboot again (no big surprise there.)
Finally, after about 3 hours of fighting with the print server, I had its config right in front of me. I changed the network settings of the print server, and saved the changes. The next step was the yank the crossover cable that I had been using, and plug the print server into the 10/100 switch that I had hooked up to the DSL router. The link light came on right away on the print server and on the switch. I was making progress.
I then launched the port setup software for the print server. It saw the print server over the wireless connection, and let me setup the ports. The way it works is that it sets up a bogus, software-controlled “port” under Windows. Then you point your printer to use that “port”, and the drivers behind the scenes send the print job over the network to the print server, and ultimately on to the printer. I still had the printers setup from the old house, so I just needed to configure the ports. I got both ports setup, went into my printer configs, pointed the printers to the new ports, and then sent a few test pages out.
Voila! We have working printers on the new network at the house. Our new HP ColorJet 2550n works like a champ. It takes a bit to get started on printing, but once it gets going, it churns out printouts at a pretty good pace. Our older HP LaserJet III jams anytime you print to it. I would go get it cleaned/fixed, but it’s really not worth the time or trouble. It’s a good, solid printer with new toner, new rollers, and some other new parts. We had it totally overhauled for about $200 last year. I just gotta figure out what to do with the thing.
My next project around the house is going to be backing up stuff from the three desktops to my laptop, and then figuring out which hard drives go into which machines. I’m going to build out the two spare desktops first, and get rid of them. Then I’ll build out the file server that we’ll use at the house. Should be a fun project. I can’t wait to get started on doing it.
