Ricoh Aficio and Laserjet 4240 do not like my office network. Suicide questioned.

dak125dak125
edited October 2010 in Science & Tech
Any help would be GREATLY appreciated as I am opening for business after moving offices this upcoming Monday, and these two printers need to be online. Please note that of all things computing, networking is my least favorite. The fact that all of the computers are online right now makes me believe that there IS a man upstairs, anyways:

The space:
A timber loft that was completely wired for internet. By that I mean that there are plugs that are numbered with corresponding ethernet cables throughout the office. Those ethernet cables are plugged into my D-Link switch that I just purchased. As of right now, all of the computers are online. The problem lies solely in the two main printers.

The hardware:
-Six desktops of varying age, all of which are running Windows 7.
-Ricoh Aficio MP4500, big mama jama that prints, faxes, scans, cooks dinner, and weighs 300 pounds. I loathe this machine.
-HP Laserjet 4240N. A midsize B&W Printer that I thought was going to be the easy one.
-D-Link DES-1024D 24 port ethernet switch.

Troubleshooting done thus far:
-I have plugged the printers into the switch, and the cable modem directly, neither worked.
-I have plugged each printer into one of the aforementioned outlets, that didn't work.
-I changed the Ricoh's IP to auto and tried adding a local printer via TCP/IP, it didn't find it.
-I tried innumerable times, on multiple PC's to search for a printer, that didn't work.
-I've tried adding the HP 4240 to a PC via TCP/IP, that didn't work.
-There is a third printer that will only be used by one person (an HP Laserjet 8500 little POS that was purchased for $200 from Office Depot), just for fun and the PC picked it up via a network scan IMMEDIATELY, I proceeded to pull my hair out. And by 'plug-in', I should mention I plugged it directly into one of the wall ports.
-I have installed individual drivers for both the HP & Ricoh and that didn't do anything. The drivers were installed just fine, but they didn't read anything.

I think that about sums it up. I'm going to take some pictures momentarily to offer a visualization. Any help would be tremendously appreciated. Also feel free to watch the 9:00 Chicago local news for a man screaming from a rooftop about printers being the scorn of the Earth.

EDIT: The pictures are as follows. The computers, the printers, me not liking the printers, the numbered plugs throughout the office, the printers in relation to where the computers are.

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Comments

  • the_technocratthe_technocrat IC-MotY1 Indy Icrontian
    edited October 2010
    IP is on auto, but is the subnet / gateway correct?
  • dak125dak125
    edited October 2010
    the_technocrat wrote:
    IP is on auto, but is the subnet / gateway correct?

    That is the problem, from what I've been able to gather with the help of other folks at different forums. I think the main problem is that I have the cable modem going directly to the switch. I tried adding a router to the mix, but by doing so I lost internet connectivity. The hardware in question is:

    Modem; SMC8014
    Router: befsr41

    The router is sitting on the sidelines for right now.
  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    edited October 2010
    Yes, the cable modem -> switch is probably causing at least part of the problem. Unless your cable modem has a built in router, it will give out one and only one public internet IP address to all the devices plugged into the switch (that or it will give that IP to the first one connected then refuse to give IPs to anything else). This will cause all sorts of chaos in the form of nothing being able to talk to anything else internally since they all have the same (or no) IP address.

    You need to go back to having cable modem -> router -> switch setup. Once you change it, you will probably need to refresh the IP addresses on all the computers (easiest way is to run ipconfig /release and ipconfig /renew from the command line if it is windows). Your router should assign each computer a private IP, most likely in the 192.168.1.x block.

    I would suggest logging into the router and assigning static IPs to the two printers, you don't want their IP changing randomly when the DHCP lease expires (how to do this depends on the router). You may also want to change the local subnet from 192.168.1.0 to something else (for instance, I use 192.168.13.0 at home). This isn't really NECESSARY, I usually do it for troubleshooting purposes so that I always know if a device has an IP assigned by my router or a residual conf from some other router that was left to the default subnet. If you make this change you will need to renew IPs again of course.
  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    edited October 2010
    Of course, all of the above is assuming you're using an off the shelf "home" router and not a commercial router. Commercial routers will require configuration beyond what I can describe in a forum post. You'll also need to either configure the network on everything by hand or set up a separate DHCP server as commercial routers are strictly routers, they don't have built-in DHCP functionality like home/home-office routers do.
  • the_technocratthe_technocrat IC-MotY1 Indy Icrontian
    edited October 2010
    dak125 wrote:
    That is the problem, from what I've been able to gather with the help of other folks at different forums. I think the main problem is that I have the cable modem going directly to the switch. I tried adding a router to the mix, but by doing so I lost internet connectivity. The hardware in question is:

    Modem; SMC8014
    Router: befsr41

    The router is sitting on the sidelines for right now.

    Put the router back in the game. And set it up correctly this time :)

    Download a copy of the Quick Setup guide for the router before you plug it in, plug it in between the switch and the cable modem, and hit the reset button - set it up from scratch.

    Don't forget to tell your ISP a different device is connected to their cable modem. They sometimes will only allow the first MAC address connected to work until you call them (they think you're sharing your internet connection with people who didn't pay for it) *cough*comcast*cough*
  • dak125dak125
    edited October 2010
    Thanks for both of your replies.

    My modem does have a built in router and as of right now that seems to be working well.

    After countless reboots of the Ricoh, it finally started working. All I did was do an automatic network search and all of the PC's picked it up.

    The HP is still out there in no man's land. The IP it says it's using doesn't work. I have been unable to figure out how to reset the HP, or gain access to it's web based setup. I've tried connecting directly to the printer with my laptop, but I'm still unable to get anywhere.

    The Ricoh's IP (now that it's working) is 10.1.10.xx. The HP is still showing 10.10.20.21.

    Thoughts? Thanks for all of your help!
  • the_technocratthe_technocrat IC-MotY1 Indy Icrontian
    edited October 2010
    Use the menus on the printer to print out what it thinks its config is supposed to be

    you'll probably see that it's not properly detecting the subnet, etc.
  • the_technocratthe_technocrat IC-MotY1 Indy Icrontian
    edited October 2010
    the_technocrat wrote:
    Use the menus on the printer to print out what it thinks its config is supposed to be

    you'll probably see that it's not properly detecting the subnet, etc.

    edit: prob the case: 10.10.20.xx
  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    edited October 2010
    That depends entirely on the network config. Could you post what your network IP/subnet mask is? That would help in determining if that IP is even in the right range.
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited October 2010
    For an office your size your Subnet mask should be 255.255.255.0 so that means the ip of all your devices have to match the first 3 sets so they all have to start 10.1.10.xxx change the hp printer manually through the menu to 10.1.10.21 and it should be fine.
  • dak125dak125
    edited October 2010
    Thank you all for your help and responses, everything is working. A quick run down of how it was solved:

    -The Ricoh finally changed IP's by being left unplugged for an extended period of time. The touchpad is still broken so I have been unable to change the IP to a static one. The web based control panel doesn't allow changes to be made, I can only view current settings. A repairman is coming in tomorrow afternoon to replace the touchpad, then I can switch the sucker to a static IP.
    -After countless unplugs, reboots, and network setting printouts I was unable to get the HP to start talking to the network. The problem was that the IP was still from the old office. After quite a bit of Googling, I was able to find a 'cold restart' function. The cold restart was exactly what needed to happen and it refreshed the IP. I was then able to access the control panel and switch the IP to a static one.

    All of the computers can print to both printers which is awweeeesssommmee. I may need some help getting the scan function to work on the Ricoh once the touchpad is repaired.

    Thanks for all of the help!
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