HELP! Trying to get my printer switch to work

[rh100]

Almost there

when a printer has a network connection, it becomes independant of any pc's (on a home network anyway)

each pc should then be able to communicate to it independantly of any other pc.

this is because a network port can be anywhere on the network (within the networks own constraints), the pc's will send the data to the printer via the network, the traffic being handled by the routers and switches, so does not need one particular pc left on to talk to the printer on behalf of the others.

IF the printer was connected by USB or parallel cable, then those ports generally only exist on a PC (but some network to usb print servers are available), so therefore the pc that has the physical connection to the printer needs to be on, and sharing it's connection to the printer over the network for the other pc's to send their print jobs to.

 

[ian turner]

er I suspect you should stick to manually swapping the usb lead.
The first sentence states what a switch is, a device to increase the number of devices you can attach to your network.
A latter sentence states you do not need to connect the printer to a pc. It sits on its own on the network it is available to all devices
on that network as long as you installed the drivers and selected network as the connection and let the software find the printer.

Unplug one of the pcs from your router.
Using the same sort of cable connect the switch to the router. Now Plug the pc into the switch and it's on the network again.
See the switch as being like a multisocket you plug into the mains.
Then using another network cable connect the printer to the switch and turn it on. The printer is now on the network. Under no circumstances plug the usb cable and network
cables in at the same time as like a tv only one of the connections will work at any time.
Look in the Installation guide on the printers cd which includes a section on how to connect your printer directly via usb or via a network.
The basics being as I said uninstall the driver from the add/remove programs section in control panel on both pcs then reinstall specifying network when you get to the connections section and the installation software will scan the network for printers which you
can select to be the one you connect to.

 

[rh100]

If you do get a new hub/switch, then disconnect one device/cable from your existing hub, and plug it into the new one, then plug in a link cable between old and new hubs (it should auto sense that it is a link, if not you may need to use specific ports on the hubs but dont worry about that now), so this has taken up two ports of the new hub leaving three available, plug the printer into a spare socket on the new hub, leaving two spare for future expansion.