I've raised this issue previously - but still haven't managed to resolve it.
I have a simply home network using a Medion laptop with draft n wireless LAN capability. I use this with a Linksys WAG160n router and this part of the network works perfectly.
A few months ago I bought an Epson SX600FW wireless printer to use with the network. I set the printer up ok - and was able to print wirelessly to it without problem. A short time later, however, I found that the printer had 'vanished' from the network and I was unable to print to it. The only way I could get it back was by re-booting the router - but once again, within a matter of hours, the printer went AWOL again.
I first spoke to Epson tech support but they claimed it must be a router problem.
I have now had three on-line chats with Linksys tech support about the problem. The first two times my firmware was out of date by a single version and the they merely told me to update to the latest firmware and try it out. Neither of these solutions worked.
During the latest chat with Linksys, a couple of days ago, they suggested creating a static ip address for the printer. I did this, following their instructions, but once again, within a matter of hours, the printer had vanished from the network and I was unable to print to it.
Pinging the printer from both the laptop and the router, following the loss of connection, fails.
I suppose that there are people using wireless on the basis that it must work all day every day. I would think that they get in consultants, spend $1000 on a single access point. Test the clients against the access points. Worry a lot.
For the rest of us, I think that wireless seems to be something that you can use if it is convenient but not to depend on it.
Having a cheap wireless printer using version 1 non-Standard (capital S) equipment sounds to me like the sort of thing a wireless hobbyist might have a go at for fun but not the sort of thing someone who just wanted a printer should do.
Nevertheless, you might get it to go I suppose.
Are there any other steps have you taken to try to resolve the issue other than magic upgrades? How far apart are the printer and router? How many floors apart are they? How many rooms apart are they? What are the floors/walls made of?
Make sure your ssid is unique. Make sure the antennas are not adjacent to conductive stuff e.g. antenna on back of printer within a few inches of a radiator or pipe.
My 8 month old PC drops its wireless connection, to a cisco wireless router with the latest software, nearly every day - fixed by disabling and re-enabling the wireless. I just accept it. Not worth getting hot about.
Had you also "lost" the printer from the router tables? On the printer does the LCD screen show that the printer is connected to the network, wireless LAN error or disconnected? Can you tell if the printer has gone into "sleep mode", most of the advertised specs say it has a low power "sleep mode". I have a wireless printer, a Lexmark non-multifunction, hidden away in a cupboard and after 30 mins of non-use it goes to "sleep" however upon doing a print operation it starts up within a few seconds and then prints. The driver that came with the printer did not work with Vista SP1 and I had to download the one from the website, irrespective of you appearing to have the latest drivers have you tried downloading the one from Epson? The latest driver is listed as ver6.64 25th March 09. also the network utilities are dated for April 09 as well.
The *ONLY* way was to reboot the router? Did you try to reboot the printer or laptop?
How many hours? 1, 10, 100, 1000 hours? What's the power save timeout on the Epson printer?
Give the Epson printer a static IP address. It's in the wireless config for the printer, somewhere. This way, you're not relying on the router to deliver a DHCP assigned IP address to the printer or for the router to reassign the same IP address when the printer goes into power save mode. Select an IP address that is NOT inside the DHCP assigned IP address range, which appears to be 192.168.1.100 thru
192.168.1.151.
An alternative to this is to use a pre-assigned DHCP address that is tied to the MAC address of the Epson network interface. However, looking at the online emulator:
this feature is not present.
The first step to solving a problem is to assign the blame. In situations where there are multiple pieces of hardware or software involved, it's always the other vendors fault. Please consider this a fundamental law of nature.
You have my sympathy. Recovery from talking to tech support can be accelerated by engaging in non-computer related violent activities. I favor cutting or splitting firewood when at home, and smashing a computah into its fundamental component parts with a large hammer, when at the office.
Good advice. I've recently experience problems with creative firmware updates, beta versions leaked out of support, and different versions on the web/ftp sites. What version do you have actually installed?
I dug through the Epson US page for info on the Epson Stylus SX600FW printer, but didn't find anything. I switched to the UK Epson site, and found it. There seems to be recent (April 7) network config and driver updates at:
Also, the "event manager" looks interesting if it will record connectivity "events".
Hmmm... that was also my suggestion.
Was this ping failure with a static IP address? That should ALWAYS work but only if the wireless client in the printer remains connected. Leave the static IP address in place as it simplifies testing.
As long as the wireless client in the printer remains connected to the router, you should be able to ping the printer. With a static IP, the only thing left to fail is the wireless connection *FROM* the printer. The connection cannot be initiated from the router side. If the printer goes to sleep, or disconnects the wireless link from the printer end, there's nothing you can do at the router or computer end to wake it up.
My guess(tm) is that this is what's happening. If the printer goes into power save mode, the wireless link disconnects and remains disconnected until you do something on the printer end, like take it out of the snooze mode. Did you try this? When the printer goes comatose, and you have a static IP address, can you tap something on the front panel of the printer to wake it up? If so, does it work after you do that?
It seems that the WAG160N has some logging features:
Enable the logging and see if it shows anything useful.
Insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly, and expecting different results. Calling support 3 times qualifies.
Check the power save setting on the Epson. Shorten the timeout to make testing easier.
Get a wireless sniffer that will sniff client traffic and see what happens when the printer goes comatose. When alive, it should be belching keep alive packets. If these cease, the router will think the printer has gone away and drop the wireless link.
Check the setting for the printer in the driver configuration on your laptop. There might be a timeout setting.
See if it works any differently with a wired ethernet connection.
Get a different printer. They're cheaper than your time is worth.
That would be too easy and far too conventional. Wireless everything is close to magic, and magic is what makes everything work. Wireless is also high fashion according to the pundits.
Wires and cables are also ugly and considered an eyesore. Look at any printed trade publication, that shows a smiling customer, in front of the latest computah, and you will not see one single wire or cable in the picture. No power cords, mouse cable, keyboard cables, joystick cables, USB hubs, CAT5 network spagetti, or printer cables.
Besides, if wireless were easy, it would be no fun.
Drivel: Please learn to edit the quoted text. I really hate reading my own stuff again.
We have several users on our home network and if we wished to have an old canon inkjet printer available for everyone to use we have to leave a desktop PC switched on with the printer connected to a USB port. We could have looked for a print server or a router with that capability but that was more expense and it was difficult to find one that was compatible with the printer, this was even more difficult with multifunction printers. Like quite a few others we got our wireless printer free from our ISP and apart from initial driver problems with Vista SP1 and as yet not working from Linux it works quite well. We have it hidden in a cupboard out of the way and connected to the mains. Since it is hidden we don't hear all the usual printer noises while it is working and I like the flexibility of being able to move it around while decorating the house without having to re-route cables , as it also works in adhoc mode I can have the whole of the network down and still use the printer while in the garage or garden.
Because I use my laptop down in my lounge, and the router and printer are upstairs in an unused bedroom. It is inconvenient to have to keep taking the laptop upstairs and plugging it into the printer whenever I want to print off document! (Although, currently, I have to keep going upstairs and re-booting the router whenever I want to print something off!!)
That's worth a try. I've updated the firmware for the router - but not for the printer. The printer does, indeed, go to sleep after a period of inactivity and it may be that this is when connectivity is lost.
On occasions the connection will remain for a couple of days - on others, just an hour. There doesn't seem to be any set period.
Linksys advised me to use 192.168.1.10 - the problem remains.
LOL!! Yes - good suggestions!
1.00.12
Great - I'll download and install those updates.
Yes - it was with the static IP address. I'll do as you suggest and keep the static IP.
This would appear to suggest that the printer is not at fault because when I lose the printer from the network, the only way I can get it back is by re-booting the router.
The printer does go to sleep after a period of inactivity - although the disconnection does not appear to be associated with this - sometimes the connection can remain for a couple of days. I can indeed wake the printer up from its control panel - but this does not re-make the connection - only re-booting the router does that.
Will do.
I'm afraid you've lost me here. A wireless sniffer???
I'll do that.
OK.
LOL! But I already got rid of a perfectly functioning wired printer (passed on to a relative) in order to buy the SX600fw!
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Arthur C Clark.
Also:-
Does anyone know of a free wireless sniffer for Windows?
Wireshark is free for Linux.
Well to clarify, Wireshark is free for windows too (obviously) but I do not know of a free pcap driver thingy for Wireless for Windows, so the end result is that it is not free.
I first used MS Netmon over a decade ago but had completely forgotten about it since for most purposes Sniffer or now Wireshark has proved more convenient.
After 10 seconds of use I can say it has some nice features. Shows the process that sent the traffic for example.
It was actually the promiscuous mode I was interested in. I did ask about this several months ago but no one seemed to have tried it. The following link was for ver 3.1 but ver 3.3 has the same functionality.
The above link seems to imply that anything that is blessed by Microsoft will work. Quoting: NOTE: That the Windows Logo Kit 1.0c has released. Please verify with your manufacture that your NIC has passed this certification to determine if NM3.1 supports wireless sniffing. The list above will no longer be updated now that the certification is complete. I read that to hint that if the card and driver have the right logo, and are in the hardware compatibility list, it should work in promiscuous mode. However, without a copy of the tests, I can't tell if the logo kit actually tests for promiscuous mode functionality. If so, it's a 180 degree reversal of previous Microsoft policy which was to intentionally disarm promiscuous mode in the XP NDIS 5.x drivers.
Digging furthur:
Drilling down to wireless adapters, I find:
Looks like it's only for Vista drivers. So much for XP. Looking for the Intel 3945ABG card, it shows the right logo status for Vista:
So, by my interpretation of the vague comments on the NM3 page, and assuming promiscuous mode is in the logo tests, the Intel 3945ABG card just might work with NM3.x.
My ZD1211 USB adapter hangs when I try to go into Monitor Mode, Promiscuous, and says adapter busy. I tried it several times and it would not work and on 3 occasions I had to create a new wireless connection to get the adapter to connect to my router afterwards. My RT2870 USB adapter and the built in AR5007 b/g adapter both work although they give different RSSI's, greater than 10 difference, and different rates. WLK 1.3 now has to be used for WLAN for Vista.
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