HP jetdirect ew2400 802.11g Wireless Print Server

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Level 2

304 points

HP jetdirect ew2400 802.11g Wireless Print Server

I have a network setup where there is a PC desktop and a couple of
laptops (one Macbook Pro and the other a PC) which are respectively connected to a Linksys wireless router by wire and wirelessly. There is also an HP All-In-One 6110 thrown
into this mix, which is currently hard-wired via USB to the desktop. I
want to make the AIO networkable, both wirelessly and wired. I did
some research and came across this JetDirect product from HP.
I have a question about this particular product. It mentions in the
literature that this product will either work wirelessly or wired. No
where does it mention that it will do both at the same time. I am
familiar with wireless routers which allow both wired and wireless
connections. Would the same not be true for the print server?

G4 466, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Feb 3, 2008 4:47 AM

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Answer 1

greg sahli

Level 7

25,508 points

Feb 3, 2008 6:30 AM in response to Roland Drake

Henry G4 makes some good points.

I am not sure I understand why you want to use both wireless and ethernet at the same time. In both cases it would be on the same local network, right? The only situation I can think of using both wired and wireless is if you have two separate networks and you're trying to share it on each.

So, I add this: whether the printer were wired or wireless, it would be accessible to all computers in the same local network.

Here is your real problem - drivers. Unless you have read something elsewhere, the OS X print driver HP provided for your AIO only works for direct USB connection. Not even with an HP Jetdirect. (not sure about scanning driver) read here:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&task Id=120&prodSeriesId=408888&prodTypeId=18972&objectID=c00218889

It will be cheaper to try sharing as Henry suggests. You will need the hpijs driver set:
http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/OpenPrinting/MacOSX/hpijs

PS - I know this is hard for Windows converts to get their arms around, because on Windows, a driver is a driver. But on OS X, we're not there yet - there are two kinds of print drivers.

PS#2 - This product "might" work for your printer (I don't have one). It has software on the mac & PCs to make USB devices appear to be at the computer:
http://www.keyspan.com/products/us4a/

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Answer 2

Henry G4

Level 4

1,871 points

Feb 3, 2008 5:45 AM in response to Roland Drake

Hi.

I don't know exactly this product, but similar print servers will work either wireless or wired, but not both modes at the same time. Usually, they can connect in three different ways, wired, through an Ethernet cable plugged in a LAN port of the router, wirelessly in infrastructure mode, in which it connects wirelessly to the router and an ip address is assigned to it, and in ad-hoc mode, in which it connects directly to the wireless computers, but not to the router (in this scenario, the computers wired to the router are excluded from printing).

Personally, I wouldn't go for this product, as there're options I think are better than this.

You can simply set the printer as a "Shared printer" so any computer on the LAN can print to it. The downside of this is that you need to have the PC on to print from another computer, and the mac may require drivers from Gutenprint or HIJPS.

I would go for a new Network Printer, specially one from Brother, like this, or this one.
They have very good driver support for the Mac, they work through Bonjour, so the setup is very easy, the ink is not expensive, and they're very reliable. Also, they're cheaper than the HP print server, and you receive a brand new all in one with better resolution than your HP, both for printing and scanning. They also have monochrome and color laser MFCs that work the same way.

Good Luck.

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