Printer vanished

[alice]

I have 7 PCs with XP. Yesterday the printer worked fine on all of them.
Today only one of them can find the printer. They are all set up the
same, connecting to a switch, which the printer is also plugged into.
They can all reach the shared internet connection. They still have the
printer listed, but I can't connect even to look at properties. If I
ping the IP address, it can't find it. When I try to reinstall it finds
no printers on the network. I could connect one of them by direct
cable, but I need to connect them all. I don't know what else to try or
look for at this point, any suggestions?

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I have 7 PCs with XP. Yesterday the printer worked fine on all of them.
Today only one of them can find the printer. They are all set up the
same, connecting to a switch, which the printer is also plugged into.
They can all reach the shared internet connection. They still have the
printer listed, but I can't connect even to look at properties. If I
ping the IP address, it can't find it. When I try to reinstall it finds
no printers on the network. I could connect one of them by direct
cable, but I need to connect them all. I don't know what else to try or
look for at this point, any suggestions?

Does the printer have a fixed IP address? Is it assigned via DHCP? Check
the router to see where it is now. Check cabling and any network card
diagnostic lights on the printer - it is possible that the adapter has
failed.

HTH
-pk

 

[alice]

<[email protected]> wrote in message

Does the printer have a fixed IP address? Is it assigned via DHCP? Check
the router to see where it is now. Check cabling and any network card
diagnostic lights on the printer - it is possible that the adapter has
failed.

It can't be the adapter on the printer, becuase it is working for 1 PC,
connected the same way all the others are.
It does have an IP address. When I ping it, it can't be reached.
I ended up installing the software from the CD that came with the
printer. Thtat's not how I connected them in the first place, and it
adds all kinds of other printer management software that I don't need,
and takes much longer, but it worked.
What I can't figure out is how the software does it if I can't. If the
PC can't ping that host because it is unreachable, how can the Brother
Printer software find it? What does it do that the admin can't do in
the Add Printer control panel?