Having issues with HP Jetdirect on HP4200

EIO JetDirect cards are a pretty common failure with those older HP LaserJet series printers. Replace it. The replacement EIO modules are available, and fairly cheap, and those old HP departmental printers do still work reasonably well.

Remember to power down the printer when reconfiguring the EIO device. Don't hot-plug the EIO slots.

As for the IP address, gateway and related settings, you'll usually use the front panel on the LaserJet 4200 series printer to configure that.

The IP address you've listed is the address that the printer is set to.

If you're on a corporate network that's using what's variously known as network access controls or as port security, you may have to contact your IT organization and update the MAC address in their database — some IT organizations use MAC addresses for security, and swapping the EIO can prevent it from being allowed onto the local network. Yours looks to be 00-01-E6-AE-AE-AA, based on that listing — if that's the current/new EIO module. (This is the printer's MAC address, and nothing to do with Mac OS X.)

FWIW, Here are the HP manuals for that series of printer. Also available is the User Guideand the JetDirect manual for what I think is that series EIO JetDirect for that printer. (Looks like you have the 615n?) Page 189 of that lattermost manual has the JetDirect device reset sequence, and the basic IP network front-panel configuration for that series starts on page 38. (Here's a discussion of some previous problems with the 615n, and the free replacements that were once available from HP.) The newer replacement cards seem rather more reliable than the older EIO cards; the last EIO I replaced in this series is from a few years ago, and I used the HP JetDirect J7934G (620n), and that's been reliable so far.

FWIW, it'd probably be fastest to check with HP or with the HP forums about their printers — this question really doesn't have anything to do with OS X or Apple products, so you're probably not asking the best possible audience for your question. (I happen to have dealt with a few of these old printers over the years, and have one handy to look at the configuration...)

Ok, the first thing you have to fix is the "lights not on" where you plug into the router. That indicates to me - either a bad cable or, the network adapter/port on the printer is bad.

Easiest way to test is a new cable. And try different port on the router, if possible.

Use the Terminal utility and type

ping 192.168.x.x (obviously, put the real IP address here instead of 192xxxx)

stop the repeating messages of success with Control-c

failure will say timed out or unreachable.

brilehnhof wrote:

The ping resulted in repeated "destination net unreachable"... so do I surrender now?

Consider contacting your organization's IT folks — they do this sort of IP networking stuff for a living, and printers are regular fodder in the typical IT problem queue in most organizations. As I mentioned up-thread, your organization may well have security in place, and that can block a new device from appearing on the network, and some can also choose to block ping requests.

Only thing I would try is use the jetdirect card in a different printer - probably not helpful. Sorry.

Those cards or external jetdirects are fairly cheap on eBay now.

Ok, I'm sorry I saw your IP addresses and immediately assumed you were in an enterprise situation.

To quickly get to the point - you haven't set up your router/local network correctly or you have made wrong assumptions about what IP addresses you are dealing with.

A router exists to obtain one IP address for your house, and to share that one input with everything in the house using a locally reserved IP address scheme. The most typical local IP addresses are in the range of 192.168.x.x. Again, these IP addresses are reserved for local use - no one can get from the outside to the inside unless you set up an exception to allow it.

The IP addresses you gave me before don't fit in a router/local network scheme.

I suggest you read through you router manual and start over -- or, maybe you just didn't understand what local IP addresses are and were telling us the wrong IPs?

Do you have somebody around that can help you learn networking and that can help you configure or reconfigure this network?

Setting up a home network involves knowing a few core details about IP networking — greg sahli provided a start, there — but anything past a generic description of IP networking is comparatively difficult for a forum posting, because the various devices can use different configuration interfaces and even different terminology.

The usual hidden or private IP addresses for NAT'd networks are in the range 10.0.0.0 through 10.255.255.255, 172.16.0.0 through 172.31.255.255, or 192.168.0.0 through 192.168.255.255. Properly-functioning gateway-router-NAT boxes should block these address ranges from entering or exiting your own (private) network.

I don't have any introductory materials that would be appropriate here, though there might be some posted around the network.

Here's a video of a basic wireless network using Apple gear, which might help some here — if you're using Apple AirPort or Time Capsule as your gateway-router-NAT box.

If there's nobody around that can help you with this and you want to continue the discussion here, please post the make and model of your gateway-router-NAT box, and what other networking gear (switch, WiFi router, printer, etc) you have, and we can start by helping you configure that. Or as greg sahli suggests, read through the manual for that device, and post up any questions you might have. But when starting a small home network configuration, the gateway-router-NAT box is probably the key part of the whole network configuration.

But see if there's somebody locally that can help — this goes far faster when you can see what's going on, and ask questions.

Sounds like the card slot is bad?

You need to be sure the new card works - again, by testing in another printer.

OK, back to where we were - the ping command will tell us if the printer is really on the network and responsive.

brilehnhof wrote:

This is probably a dumb question, but I cannot find terminal utility. Please help

Terminal.app is located in Applications > Utilities

Alternatively, you can use Spotlight (click on for the magnifying-glass icon in the upper right corner) and enter Terminal.app in the search box. That'll find Terminal.app for you.

I personally wouldn't surrender....!

So, there is a problem with your local network setup. I think you need someone local to look at this.

I think the fact that you have your computer and the printer using world-accessible IP addresses is the first clue. You have an enterprise (not consumer) router or switch somewhere (that you don't control) that is blocking access - or in a more simplistic explanation - it is forwarding requests to the internet instead of to your printer.