Intermittent printer problem

I've tried a couple of laserjet printers over the past three years and both (Samsung ML2525w & HP 1102w) had had the same problem. About 75% of the time they work just fine with all Macs on my network (three)...but the other 25% of the time they refuse to be discovered. Every time the problem arises, the printer dock icon displays "Can't connect with printer). I go to Preferences and the printer appears to be just fine...sitting there as the default printer, green dot, idle, and nothing in the queue.

The network connection is just fine, and this happens with ALL Macs on the network...not just one, so it appears to be an OS issue, yet it has happened with the past three versions of OS X, so that doesn't make sense, either.

The only way to make the printer work when this occurs is to remove it, then re-add it (it always shows up INSTANTLY when I click on "+" to add a printer...so if it can't be found on the network, it shouldn't be found on this list either. Very frustrating issue, and if it's directly related to the printer, I'll gladly get a new printer, but the one I currently have (HP LaserJet 1102w) is supposed to work perfectly with OS X.