How to connect my wireless printer

Strongbow10

Bought a Kodak ESP C315 wireless printer/scanner/photocopier today and I am having problems connecting it to my laptop

it will work when I use a USB cable connecting laptop and printer but it will not detect the printer when I try the wireless option.

Does the fact I use an O2 mobile broadband dongle have any effect on my ability to use the wireless option?

When I run the wireless option it seems to be searching for my network but its undetected everytime, despite me being online and in close proximity.

It then requests that I push the WPS button on my router but i think its a built in router, the laptop is a dell Inspiron N5010

any advice would be greatly appreciated

yoyo

Strongbow10 wrote: »

Bought a Kodak ESP C315 wireless printer/scanner/photocopier today and I am having problems connecting it to my laptop

it will work when I use a USB cable connecting laptop and printer but it will not detect the printer when I try the wireless option.

Does the fact I use an O2 mobile broadband dongle have any effect on my ability to use the wireless option?

When I run the wireless option it seems to be searching for my network but its undetected everytime, despite me being online and in close proximity.

It then requests that I push the WPS button on my router but i think its a built in router, the laptop is a dell Inspiron N5010

any advice would be greatly appreciated

You will have issues if the o2 Dongle doesn't do Wifi, those printers specifically say Wifi router needed in the specs.

Nick

Hijpo

You will have issues if the o2 Dongle doesn't do Wifi, those printers specifically say Wifi router needed in the specs.

Nick

Why would it not work ad-hoc?

bobbytables

Hijpo wrote: »

Why would it not work ad-hoc?

If the dongle is the only device between you and your service provider then it's not Wifi you're using, it's 3G or similar. Both network stacks implement IP, but the lowest levels are based on a different technology.

Wifi is an example of a wireless networking protocol, but it's not the only one.

So if the dongle uses Wifi to connect to a local access point you could use an adhoc connection, but it would make more sense to join the printer to your local wifi network just like your laptop joins and then scan the network for your network printer from your laptop. This again is entirely dependent on you having a local wifi network.

Adhoc would also work by creating an adhoc connection using your laptops wifi interface & not the dongle for printing.

Hijpo

bobbytables wrote: »

Hijpo wrote: »

Why would it not work ad-hoc?

If the dongle is the only device between you and your service provider then it's not Wifi you're using, it's 3G or similar. Both network stacks implement IP, but the lowest levels are based on a different technology.

Wifi is an example of a wireless networking protocol, but it's not the only one.

So if the dongle uses Wifi to connect to a local access point you could use an adhoc connection, but it would make more sense to join the printer to your local wifi network just like your laptop joins and then scan the network for your network printer from your laptop. This again is entirely dependent on you having a local wifi network.

Adhoc would also work by creating an adhoc connection using your laptops wifi interface & not the dongle for printing.

Sorry i meant to say if he plugged out the dongle and used the wireless nic. It should work right? I presumed e had a wireless nic with it being a laptop.
Handy info though, thanks.

Also why would they specify that its needs a wifi router if ad-hoc will do the job?

bobbytables

Truthfully mate I tapped out that entire post (this one too) on my phone. By the time I got to the end of my little rant, I only then realized the genius of your suggestion, so in an attempt to appear clever I shamefully included it at the end in my own words, to simply justify the ordeal my poor index finger went through with this feckin tiny virtual keyboard

bobbytables

Access point not necessary for adhoc!. Jesus this is getting far more complicated than it needs to be

Hijpo

bobbytables wrote: »

Truthfully mate I tapped out that entire post (this one too) on my phone. By the time I got to the end of my little rant, I only then realized the genius of your suggestion, so in an attempt to appear clever I shamefully included it at the end in my own words, to simply justify the ordeal my poor index finger went through with this feckin tiny virtual keyboard

Lmao fair play to you, i cant imagine how many times you had to delete entire lines after missing a letter because the friggin cursor wont go where you want it to go!!

yoyo

Hijpo wrote: »

Sorry i meant to say if he plugged out the dongle and used the wireless nic. It should work right? I presumed e had a wireless nic with it being a laptop.
Handy info though, thanks.

Also why would they specify that its needs a wifi router if ad-hoc will do the job?

He should be able to that alrite, I didn't say it was not possible (although admittedly wasn't clear :P ), but those wireless printer installers assume you have a wifi router and you'll connect it through that. I'm not sure but I think some of those dongles won't allow wifi and them operate at the same time, so OP may not even be able to set the printer up that particular way (and be able to use the net at the same time)

Nick

Hijpo

yoyo wrote: »

Hijpo wrote: »

Sorry i meant to say if he plugged out the dongle and used the wireless nic. It should work right? I presumed e had a wireless nic with it being a laptop.
Handy info though, thanks.

Also why would they specify that its needs a wifi router if ad-hoc will do the job?

He should be able to that alrite, I didn't say it was not possible (although admittedly wasn't clear :P ), but those wireless printer installers assume you have a wifi router and you'll connect it through that. I'm not sure but I think some of those dongles won't allow wifi and them operate at the same time, so OP may not even be able to set the printer up that particular way (and be able to use the net at the same time)

Nick

I was thinking that myself, the same way you cant use ethrnet + wifi at the same time?

yoyo

Hijpo wrote: »

I was thinking that myself, the same way you cant use ethrnet + wifi at the same time?

Yeah, I think those broadband dongles bridge with the Ethernet connection to work the way they do, I'm not too sure as I cannot stand them so don't use them :P but have noticed many problems with peoples machines after installing the Hawaii drivers (of course some people have drivers for 3, o2, vodafone, meteor you name it collecting them!)

Nick

Hijpo

yoyo wrote: »

Hijpo wrote: »

I was thinking that myself, the same way you cant use ethrnet + wifi at the same time?

Yeah, I think those broadband dongles bridge with the Ethernet connection to work the way they do, I'm not too sure as I cannot stand them so don't use them :P but have noticed many problems with peoples machines after installing the Hawaii drivers (of course some people have drivers for 3, o2, vodafone, meteor you name it collecting them!)

Nick

A friend of mine wanted to know why his wouldnt work with his ps3 to play fifa12, i told him the lead in the paint on his walls wouldnt allow the signal out.

yoyo

Hijpo wrote: »

A friend of mine wanted to know why his wouldnt work with his ps3 to play fifa12, i told him the lead in the paint on his walls wouldnt allow the signal out.

Even at full signal those things can suffer serious latency issues, not to mention congestion. I know people who have changed from eircom or insert Cable/DSL provider here and then wonder why Skype etc are unusable. Those things are designed for mobile broadband, not a replacement for fixed line unless you have no other choice

Nick

Strongbow10

thanks for the replies lads, unfortunately its like reading dutch to me!

Practically speaking how do I go about doing this?

what are the steps?

I should state that my o2 mobile broadband dongle attached to my laptop is for personal use, i'm not sure about networks and the like

Hijpo

Strongbow10 wrote: »

thanks for the replies lads, unfortunately its like reading dutch to me!

Practically speaking how do I go about doing this?

what are the steps?

I should state that my o2 mobile broadband dongle attached to my laptop is for personal use, i'm not sure about networks and the like

Sorry we went off a little there :-) look in your printer manual for a way to set it to ad-hoc mode. Plug out the dongle from the laptop so it uses your inbuilt wireless card in the laptop instead of the dongle for wireless connections. Then set up a new wireless connection to use ad-hoc mode. Its usually located under control panel> network and sharing> setup a new connection> scroll down to set up a wireless ad-hoc. In the next few stepa it will ask you to create a network name(ssid) and security type (wpa2-personal) and a security key. Clcke box to save the network so you dont have to redo it everytime. The info you set on the laptop has to be identical to the info to set up the printer. Without a router to hand out an ip address you,ll have to set static ip address on both the printer and laptop. Im not sure if this will impact on your dongle connection.