Unable to talk to WPS11 Print Server from Dell laptop w/ 1180 card

[RICHINMINN]

A friend just bought a new Dell Inspiron laptop, and ordered the 1180 wireless card in it. I had previously set up her wireless network using Linksys components, including a BEFW11P1 AP/Cable-DSL router/print server, as well as a WPS11 print server on a second printer, with a WPC11 PCI wireless card in her desktop system, a WUSB11 interface in her son's PC, and a PCMCIA card in her old laptop. On her new laptop I installed the software for the BEFW11P1, and everything installed easily, and worked fine. I tried to install the WPS11 drivers/software, but could not get it to work. I could get the software to see the WPS11 print server, but then could not get the printer to see the print server. (The installation procedure for the WPS11 is COMPLETELY different from the installation for the BEFW11P1, which I would have thought to be more complicated.)

What am I doing wrong?

Rich (in Minn.)

 

[RICHINMINN]

An update:
In configuring the new laptop for use with the wireless printers, I had downloaded a new version of the Postscript drivers for the HP LaserJet 6P, which is connected to the WSP11 print server. After several hours of screwing around, I downloaded the PCL drivers from the HP website and installed the printer using those drivers. Everything works! So it was the new version of the Postscript drivers from the HP website that was the source of the problem. (The other three systems were still using an older version of the postscript drivers for the 6P.)

Rich (in Minn.)

 

[stingers]

I had a lot of probelms with the WPS11 also. I found this review(walkthrough) and it helped me Mine works fine now. Follow it carefully.


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Linksys WPS11 Wireless-B Print Server > Customer Review #3:
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Works with a little patients

I purchased WPS-11 Ver 3 model from Amazon.com at a good price .... I have had good luck with previous Linksys products and they have all had very easy setup. This print server was difficult to set up and if you dont have a basic understanding of networking, set-up will be a problem.
I have a Linksys BEFW11S4 V.2 Wireless Access Point with 4 port router installed on my wireless network. I am running Zone Alarm firewall that is integrated with the router and it caused all of my problems. I was able to connect with wired Ethernet port and do all set-up of the print server using the included Bi-Admin tool but could not make the print server work in wireless mode. When I was connected by wireed port I could look at the wireless link status in the Bi-Admin tool and see that I was connected to the WAP and had good signal strength. (Please note unlike others have stated here, I had no problems with using an SSID different than the default or enabling 128-bit WEP).

I had to do the following steps to make the print server work in wireless mode. First, I disabled DHCP on the print server and set a static IP address. Then I had to enable exemption for this IP address on the security set up page of the Wireless Access Point. This is also the page where Zone Alarm firewall settings are made for the integrated firewall on the router. Had I just turned off the firewall on the WAP/router I would have saved a great deal of time. What ever you do, if you have a firewall, turn it off before you start the installation and it will go much easier. Then once things are running you can turn the firewall on and determine what firewall settings ned to be changed to allow the print server to remain functioning. Also once the Ethernet cable is removed you must cycle power to get the print server to use the wireless connection it will continue to try and acceess the wired connection once you remove the cable until you power cycle. It does not try to cycle automatically between wired and wireless.

After performing these steps everything worked great with out any problems.