Using a hardwired network item with wireless

A colleague has just rearranged his office such that he has swapped two offices around with respect to the location of his modem router.

Previously his printer was hardwire connected to his router as was his pc and a printer also connected to the router. Another pc was connected to the router via wireless. He could print from both.

Since his printer is now where the wireless connected pc is he has no easy wired route to the router.

The wireless pc near the printer has a USB wireless stick. He has tried simply plugging the printer into the empty LAN port on that pc, but not seen.

Is there a simple way of making the wireless pc also act as a switch with respect to the printer on the pc's LAN port?

I have not had chance to see whether the LAN port has been disabled in the bios, also I guess one solution may involve reinstalling the printer, but for the moment wondering whether the LAN port and Wireless can be used as above.

Hope that makes sense!

Thanks.

It's a little vague, but is network discovery and said LAN port enabled on the PC? Drivers for it installed?

If you connect a printer to a PC then want to access said printer remotely, you'll need to have the PC set as a print server and left on if requiring access to the printer.

Maybe if you number the PCs and printers.

Thanks for that.

I'll be there on Wednesday and likely have a look then.

Cheers!

wireless ethernet bridges

You can convert the wireless back into ethernet using one of these devices. WHich is best, depends on what wireless router you already use

Before delving into the pain of wireless bridges, I'd think carefully about either running some cable (really not that tricky), or using homeplugs instead.

Very true, the cable and wall socket kits are easy enough to install, and easier to put together than crimping ends on leads.

presuming its a windows machine of some form:
you can link the printer via the (otherwise unused) network port on the computer, however, you will have to assign static addresses for both that port and the printer, and these must be in a different range from original router (subnet).
once this is done, the printer can be shared to original network.
the pc would have to be on for other to print.

it could also be done using the internet connection sharing tools within windows,- making the pc a router

Edited by ggremlin (Mon 01-Aug-11 10:30:18)