Can't find printer......help

[timwood2000]

OK, in my house there are two Macs and 1 PC. This weekend I bought a Apple Airport Express wireless router to replace my old Belkin router - with the sole purpose of enabling wireless printing to my Canon MP460.

Everything works like a dream with the 2 macs - picked up the printer (which is connected to the Airport Express) no problem.

But - the pc simply won't find the printer. It is a newish laptop and the settings are all standard. I have tried everything I can think of and can't work it out.

I don't think it is the router as the PC connects to it wirelessly OK, just that it can't find the printer - which was the whole point!

Any help, gratefully received.

Cheers

 

[wemorgan]

Maybe the new router has issued a new IP address to the printer.
For example mine is: 192.168.0.200 and I can access it's web status in http://192.168.0.200/
I have set this manually rather than letting the router automatically assign one like 192.168.0.2
Try giving the printer IP address to the computer.

 

[w124coupe]

How are you trying to find the printer from Windows?

 

[Rory]

wireless printing to my Canon MP460.

Sorry if I'm missing something, but the MP460 isn't a wireless (or wired network) printer, is it?

If not, how and what is it connected to?

 

[flango]

Sorry if I'm missing something, but the MP460 isn't a wireless (or wired network) printer, is it?

If not, how and what is it connected to?

Is the printer not connected to the Airport Express? Thats what makes it wireless?

 

[wemorgan]

Sorry if I'm missing something, but the MP460 isn't a wireless (or wired network) printer, is it?

If not, how and what is it connected to?

his router I believe.

 

[Dryce]

Any help, gratefully received.

Chances are the Airport is acting like a simple print server. So you'll need to set up an IP port on your PC for the printer.

Easiest way to do this is to setup the printer via USB. Then once this is all happy go to the printer properties via the Control Panel and click on the 'Ports' tab and go through the process of adding in a new port using the IP address of your Airport and assigning this to the printer.

 

[Rory]

Chances are the Airport is acting like a simple print server. So you'll need to set up an IP port on your PC for the printer.

Ah, fair enough. Funnily enough I have 2 routers with built-in print servers but they're so unusual I didn't consider that.


OP: Did you install Bonjour for Windows?

 

[timwood2000]

Thanks everyone so far for your help.

Yes - I have Bonjour installed, but see no evidence of it when trying to connect the printer - does it run in the background or should I be seeing it when I go through Control Panel - Add a printer etc?

The printer is connected to the router, making it wireless.

Can you tell me how to find out what IP address I should give to the PC?

Thanks v much.

 

[wemorgan]

From your Mac can you log onto your router and ask to see attached devices?

 

[Dryce]

Can you tell me how to find out what IP address I should give to the PC?

IP Address of your Airport express.

You can use the 'ipconfig' command under Windows to get the address of the 'default gateway' if your airport is acting as the default gateway on your network.

 

[Rory]

It's years since I installed my HP parallel port printer to my SMC router with print server but I remember it was quite an involved process. I still use it as a slave to my newer USR router because the USB print server in that never worked properly.

Anyway, a quick Google found this - Printing from a Windows XP PC to a printer attached to an Airport Extreme Base Station or Airport Express - and that does look pretty similar to the steps I had to go through. Things like installing it as a local printer rather than network seem counter-intuitive but are correct.

 

[greggster]

sorry to sound negative but i had the same issue with my airport on a PC - I stuck with it for months and eventually gave up as apple couldn't help.

 

[timwood2000]

Thank you everyone for your help. Followed Rory's link and it worked!

One other problem that you guys might help with - the PC keeps dropping the the internet. The connection to the router seems fine 3/4 bars out of 5.

Could it be a firewall problem - it almost seems that there is only a limited about of data being accepted before it freezes up for a bit and then comes back later.

Sorry, I know it is a bit vague, but whilst I'm on a roll....

 

[219]

I had similar trouble when trying to allow my GF's Vista laptop to print to my Epson 2100 via my Apple Airport Extreme base Station .

Both my desktop G5 - wired directly to the AEBS and my Powerbook work seamlessly ; Jan's laptop can access the internet and my network drives via the AEBS , but printing is a nightmare : she can see the printer and can actually activate the printer , but no matter the settings it will print the first page of whatever she is trying to print - again , and again , and ..... until the printer runs out of paper . Then I have to shut down the printer and empty the printer jobs on her machine before I can use it again .

I likewise went through the Bonjour setup a number of times , page setup etc etc .

In the end I just bought a cheap local printer for her to use to print letters etc .

Wireless printing via Airport is great if you are using a Mac , but forget it if you are on Windows .

 

[timwood2000]

Unfortunately, the success was short lived.

So, I took a gamble and bought an Airport Extreme (as opposed to the Airport Express) and started all over. Only took about 5 minutes and everything works fine - the pc printer wireless connection is fine (but you do need to set it up as a local connection) and the pc connects to the network brilliantly for internet etc and doesn't drop the connection anymore. The Macs work fine anyway.

There is not reason why the Airport Extreme should work any different to the Airport Express - but it just does and although I wasted £79 on the Express, I now have a fully wireless network for macs and pc and importantly, wireless printing for all.

Thanks anyway for all your help