Laserjet 1320ns With DHCP Issues On Cisco 2

[cnthomp]

We seem to have a problem with some of our Laserjet 1320ns not being able to pull IP addresses off of our network when attached to Cisco Catalyst 2950/3550 edge switches. Other printers from the same batch will work without problems on identical hardware. Some of our techs have found that either rebooting the switch or waiting a day(!) will cause these printers to request a DHCP lease, but this does not always work. Any ideas? Have not been able to find anything on HP's forums.

 

[creeps]

cnthomp,

Are you in an AD environment? We have an AD and Novell setup here and found the same problem when our Novell network was the DHCP. On the AD network side, our network admin had to also force the ports on our Cisco 2900s that the printers were in down to 10 half. If you find anything else, please let me know. HP suggested their 2940 series printer to us, but the users do not like the price.

 

[hpwizzard]

Due to the embedded JetDirect solution provided with the LJ 1320 printers, the printer is not very well suited for DHCP IP assignment with Cisco routers or switches. I would suggest assigning a static IP right away. You should also make sure that the SNMB broadcasting service is enabled via the EWS (Embedded Web Interface) of the printer. If it is not activated, the printer might not broadcast that it is present on the network and the DHCP server never discovers it.

 

[cnthomp]

Found what may be a major part of the issue. Monitoring the port of another embedded JetDirect with the same issue with Wireshark showed that our Active Directory-based DHCP server kept offering the same IP over and over again (there is more than one available in that range,) and the printer would ARP it and find another MAC address using that IP (another embedded JetDirect, interestingly enough) that apparently had that IP already leased, unbeknownst to the DHCP server. Despite the DHCP Decline sent by the printer, the DHCP server kept sending the same one. We have yet to check other instances of the problem, but based on the reports I've heard (namely the "it works if you give it a day and never has a problem after that") I suspect this is the issue. Now to find out why the DHCP server lost track of the previous lease...
Thanks to both of you for the suggestions; both actually were somewhat valid to the actual problem.