WiFi printer not recognised by Win7 laptop

[raccoon19]

Hi all, hope you all had a great christmas holiday. Well now then, I have got a Epson SX235W. It can be used with either cable or wifi. I have been unsuccesfull in setting the wireless side up, cable is ok. The laptop does not find it when scanning to look for it during the setup phase.
I uninstalled it and run setup again but only tried to do the wireless part and still no joy. The Epson site is no good and does not show anything to help me. The WiFi on the computer and printer is switched on and I had the printer on the table beside the laptop so distance apart was not an issue.
I have read that I need to go to register the mac address with the computer but dont know how to do this or even find the mac address for the printer.
Hope someone can give me some sort of help and advice as her indoors wants the printer of the kitchen table. Thanks everyone for your help in advance.

 

[alphanumeric]

I don't know about your Epson, but when I setup my wireless capable HP laserjet I ran the setup with the printer connected to the PC via a USB cable. It was a two part setup. You configure the printers WIFI settings over USB, and then once it connects to the router you pull the USB cord and finish the setup over your WIFI. I had to tell the printer what my SSID was and what my WIFI password was so it could connect. The only way to do that was with a physical connection to the printer. Once it was on my network setting it up on my other PC's was easy. The actual setup software and drivers were on the printer and ran from the printer when I plugged it in.

 

[raccoon19]

Thanks for that alphanumeric, I think that is where I am going wrong. I dont have the router connected or even set up. My phone is not switched on till Monday. I will try that and connect it all up tomorrow, dont need the phone line to set things up that way. Cheers. I will post back and let you know what happened.

 

[alphanumeric]

You could turn the router on and setup the LAN side and configure its wireless without having an Internet WAN connection. Then setup the printers WIFI. The printer needs a WIFI network to work wirelessly. If you read though the setup instructions there probably is a way to set it up with an ad hoc connection to a PC but why bother with that if your going to setup a router anyway.

 

[raccoon19]

Thats true alphanumeric, I thought I would have time this weekend to do it but I am on nights and that puts a brake on my brain actually trying to work. I will hopefully have the time on wednesday so will let you know how I got on.
Cheers

 

[tezlewis]

You need a wireless router to setup the epson SX range printers wirelessly.

When u run the setup it asks you to hold the wifi button down on the font of the printer so it connects to the laptop that the installation is being ran on to copy over the wireless settings for the router. It then diconnects from the source of installation and connects to the wireless router. At the same time it installs the drivers for the printer to work wirelessly on the computer in question.

If you havent got a wireless router it wont work!

hope that helps.

 

[raccoon19]

Yes thanks that helps me a lot. I have a wireless router. Si I am hopeing after my last shift tonight I may be able to get sorted. Ilike to say thanks to you all for your advice.

 

[tezlewis]

Ive got the same printer and thought id have had to dig out my USB cable (to some difficulty) and when I ran setup it simply asked for me to press and hold my wireless button on front of printer and within a minute it had worked fine!

You'l be fine, just follow what the cd says!

 

[raccoon19]

An update, I have got it working at last. I set up the router and gave it a good strong pass key. Then when ran the setup disc again for the printer. With it having the drivers in for the wired side of things it skiped past that onto the wireless setup. It went smoth enough and found the printer within 30 seconds. It worked ok. I restarted the laptop but found that I needed to switch off the printer and back on to get the laptop to see it again. Thats no problem though. Just like to say thankyou everyone for your input and help to get me going. Thankyou.

 

[DeaconFrost]

I think people tend to make network printer setup much more difficult than it has to be. Regardless of the brand, the setup is almost always the same.

1. Set the IP address on the printer to something outside of your DHCP range.
2. Make sure your computer can ping the address you set.
3. Run the manufacturer's driver utility and follow the steps.

I've set up countless network printers of various brands and those steps always work.

 

[raccoon19]

Hi Deaconfrost. I hear what you are saying. Although I am computer literate and can do repairs and things to them, when it comes to doing what you say I need a lead to do it. I can install routers and periferals but when it comes down to knowing of hand where to go on the system as far as setting those things you list I need to be told where to go and then i could do it from there.
Thanks for your input though, it does make me think that I should be getting a bit more experience in them areas as I think more and more people will be trying to do without wires in the future.
Cheers

 

[DeaconFrost]

Each printer is different, but as long as it has a screen, then it should offer a way to set the IP address on it. KNowing what address to set is the key, but on a home network, it should be easy to figure out. For example, a typical home router might be 192.168.1.1. Your computers may start getting addresses assigned at 192.168.1.100, 101, 102, etc. That means something like 192.168.1.2 is not assigned or in use....and can't be given out to a computer or device. My network printer at home is using 192.168.1.2.

Once that's set on my printer, I can go back to my computer, open a command prompt, and ping 192.168.1.2, and it will return. Knowing it is online and accessible, I can then run my driver software and finish the process.

 

[raccoon19]

Hi, unfortunatly the printer does not have a screen. It is all set up now but if ever I change it I will definatly have one with a screen.
Cheers

 

[alphanumeric]

I think what he meant by screen is a web GUI. A setup window you can view on your PC. I can log into my WIFI printer just like I do on my router though IE. The printer itself doesn't have a physical screen on it.

 

[DeaconFrost]

A webGUI is nice, but you'd already need to know the IP address to connect to it. I meant an actual, physical screen on the printer, so you can configure the network options directly on the printer. I wouldn't buy a network printer without one, to be honest.

 

[alphanumeric]

OK, my bad, you did mean an actual screen on the printer. For me, for home use, thats a bit of overkill. Not that I wouldn't like to have one with a screen, but I just don't have the budget for it at this time. I only bought the printer I have because it was on sale and I had a gift card left over from Christmas. Correct me if I'm wrong but the screen is more for viewing, cropping, and PC less printing than setup functions. I just logged into my router to get the printers IP address.

 

[DeaconFrost]

Honestly, I see it is simplifying the process for the home user. It is much easier for someone to follow some screenshots on a setup poster to type in a number than log into their router and get this info. The address you'll see from the router is DHCP assigned, so it is subject to change. That's why I always set a static address outside of my DHCP scope.

You also don't need to have budget concerns for this either. A few years ago, my Kodak 7250 was $75, and it's an all-in-one. The HP Photosmart Premium it replaced was only $100, and that was purchased two years prior.

 

[alphanumeric]

I agree, depending on how computer/network savvy you are. For some, the easier it is to setup the better. My father falls into that category. Having the setup menu on the printer would likely save him from having to call me for help setting it up. Me, while I'm no IT Pro, I do know enough about Networking to set just about anything up, one way or another. Thats not to say that I wouldn't mind having that feature or that having it implies that you don't know what you're doing. In Windows 7 you don't actually have to even know what the printers IP address is. Just open the Network window, right click the printer's Icon and select "View device webpage". Works for your router too.

 

[raccoon19]

Now that it is all set up I am wondering how people without a router or internet would get the printer to work with the laptop/desktop. As someone said there will be a way to set it up adhock but would you not think that a company like epson would try to give more info in the startup sheet so as to help people like myself really. I would just like to give a big thankyou to everyone for the advice and help in getting the printer going and my wife of my back.Cheers.

 

[alphanumeric]

You can buy Bluetooth capable printers that will work with a single PC wirelessly. My father has one, setup was easy. Turn the laptop on, turn the printer on, laptop detects it as Bluetooth device, a few mouse clicks and its done. It works like a wireless mouse or keyboard. WIFI Printers are network devices, Bluetooth aren't. My father actually has one of each. The Bluetooth printer is a small portable battery operated ink-jet, and the WIFI printer is a monochrome Laserjet.
The other way to do it is to not use the WIFI and plug the printer in with the USB cable. Mine will work just like any other USB printer and connect to a single PC that way. You could then share it on your network the old fashioned way. It kind of defeats the purpose of buying a WIFI capable printer but it doesn't hurt to make the printer back wards compatible in case someone doesn't have a wireless setup but plans to at some point.