Network Printer Disappears

[mikee-2]

I have a Brother (52xx) network printer. It is part of a home network that include one Windows 7 machine, one XP machine, and numerous, occasional laptops, iPads, and iPhones. This printer will work fine for many months and then all of a sudden, it just disappears. I have to re-install the printer to get it working again. It’s almost like the IP addr is changing – perhaps due to the combination of sleep mode and other devices coming online. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to avoid this problem? Mike

[RetiredGeek]

Mike,

Is the printer wired to the router or is it wireless to the router?
I have a 5370DW and it's wired to the router. Although I haven't had the problem for more that 6 months twice before I had the same problem. What was happening, figured out with the help of Brother support, it it was switching to Wireless mode. Brother blamed it on a problematic connector for the wired card in the printer and sent me a special ethernet cable with an inline filter. That seemed to help for a while but then it happened again. This time I put a new cable of my own on and reset the printer to wired accroding to the email transcript of the previous session and all has been well since. Keeping my fingers crossed this post doesn't jinx it!

[mikee-2]

Hey RG,
My printer is hard-wired to the router (which does support wireless connections). However, I don’t think that the printer is capable of a wireless connection (I could be wrong).
My work-around is to cycle the printer power and then re-add the printer. I have used these addr/port combinations (automatically):
x.x.x.100
x.x.x.100_1
x.x.x.100_2
x.x.x.101
x.x.x.101_1
x.x.x.101_3


It’s very odd and frustrating. I’ll look into the wireless possibilities.

Thanks for the suggestions,
Mike

[RetiredGeek]

Mike,

Do you ever turn the printer off? I leave mine on all the time.
What you may want to try is to make sure what IP address the printer is using via your Router software.
Then configure the Port for the printer using that IP address as follows:
PrinterPorts.PNG

[jwitalka]

Also, check to see if your router has the option to reserve the IP address assigned to the printer so that it doesn't change in the future.

Jerry

[mikee-2]

Good ideas - i will give this a try. (as for the printer power, i typically leave it on). Thanks, Mike