How to hook up printer with DHCP on home network

[Mark W]

I have a large home network of 3 desktops, 1 laptop. I have two
printers that are on the network, a Konica 7155 and a Sharp AR-BC260.
I have used a basic linksys hub on my main computer. I have used this
quite some time with no problems at all. The setup currently is as
follows:
Main Computer
Linksys SD205 Hub-3 Cables going out of that.

1st cable connects to of course the main computer
2nd cable connects to a hub in another part of the house. This hub is
another SD205 which connects to two other desktops as well as a
Linksys WAP54G which is used for wi-fi for my laptop.
3rd cable connects to another SD205 hub. This hub has two wires going
out, one to each of the above mentioned printers.

This set up has worked great for me for the last 1-2 years. The only
downside is if I ever expand there are no more empty ports in the main
hub and most of all, I am not able to share my internet connection
directly. I do have it set up to use internet connection sharing
through my main computer but if that goes down all the others lose the
internet connection.

Well what I did is I just bought a Linksys BEFSR81 to replace my main
hub so that I can have more ports and a shared internet connection. I
have hooked it up and I am able to share all files/folders and as well
the internet connection but I can't print to either of these printers.
Currently I have them set up as two ip address, 192.168.0.20 and
192.168.0.30. I wrote linksys about this problem and their response
was I need to put both of the printers as DHCP. Well I have found a
way to switch the Sharp over to that but I haven't tried it yet. The
main printer we use is the Konica 7155 and I can't find this out, not
even in the manual I have and Konica has been of no help.
My question, does anyone know how to enable DHCP on the Konica or is
it even possible? Is there maybe a easier way to do this? if there's
a way I can share my internet connection without setting them up as
DHCP I'd be glad to. I thought about trying to even buy a larger hub
like the SD205. Still if I'm right you can't just plug a cable modem
straight into a standard hub, it has to be a router.
Well I hope all of this made sense. I have been working hard on this
with no solution so I'd appreciate any help. Thanks.

 

[Mike Walsh]

I don't think using DHCP will solve your problem. The PC you are printing from should know the IP address of the printer if you are using a router. Using DHCP, which might not always assign the same IP device to a device, would only complicate matters. The problem probably occurs because you changed from a hub to a router with a switch. A switch will send packets only to the device with the correct IP address. A hub will send all packets to all devices. It is possible that you were able to print using a hub even without using the correct IP address.

 

[Noozer]

I have a large home network of 3 desktops, 1 laptop. I have two
DHCP has nothing to do with your issue. Set the printers back to static IP
addresses.

What IP is on your PC? What IP is on your router? I'm pretty sure that most
routers hand out IP's that are 192.168.1.xxx or 2.xxx these days.

Can you ping the IP's of your printers? If not, then the network
configuration is wrong. If so, then your drivers or printers aren't working.

 

[Mark W]

I'm not sure if I know what you mean by correct IP address. I do have
it working fine now like I mentioned and have my printer driver in the
XP settings set up to print to the printer on that ip address. Do you
mean that I need to change it to a different IP address? HOw woudl I
know what the correct IP address is?

 

[Mark W]

Well seems switching the IP's to 192.168.1.20 and 192.168.1.30 fixed
my problem and everything is running fine now. I'm not sure why
Linksys suggested DHCP. Originally my PC was at IP 192.168.0.100. Now
I think it's something like 192.168.1.100. It seems like with this
router it has changed that 0 to 1 and thats' why I needed to make
these changes. Thanks for the help.