stupid printer question

mudgekin

Hi folks

I am almost too embarrassed to ask this. Our old printer has given up the ghist today and as we need one fairly quickly and at a reasonable price we searched which for the best buys. It reccommended this one HP Deskjet F4580 and by going via which we same £19

The only issue is that we have a wired network. the router and my PC and DH's PC are all connected with cables. Nowhere can I find that this printer willrun with a wired network and both of us are PC illiterate to the extent we shouldn't use them at all

Can anyone decipher the specification and tell me if this will work. I ordered it and then took cold feet and cancelled it again.

thanks from a mortified mudgekin:o

Slartibardfast_2

Do you have a BT HomeHub by any chance? if so it's possible to run the printer from the usb port at the back of the hub, making it accessible to all network users.. Check your router to see if there is an oblong USB port on the back.

If not you'll need to purchase a seperate print server (like this one, only £5) http://www.techstore.co.uk/browse.php?a=p&prodLineID=122699

mudgekin

Many thanks for this. We don't have BT home hub and the HP printer that just died was connected to my PC via a usb cable and then somehow I had set up my DH's PC to be able to print from his also.(don't ask how I managed it..more good luck than anything else I think)

What would the advantage of using a print server be over how we managed it before and would the printer that I mentioned work without a wireless network i.e the way we connected before?

Slartibardfast_2

With the print server you won't need to have a PC powered up just so you can print from another machine. You just need to make sure that the printer, server and router are on and you'll be able to print from anywhere.

Installation isn't that different to the way you set it up before, but the server should come with the relevant instructions.

mudgekin

Many thanks for this. To be honest I can't remember how I set it up but I do know that my pc had to be on when my hubby was printing from his.

I may have a go and come back and cry for help when it goes wrong

So is it safe to say that I can go ahead and buy that printer and a print server and things will work. It is the whole wireless thing that was worrying me. I didn't want to buy the printer to discover that it would only work with wireless connections

Slartibardfast_2

No it'll be fine. Wired or wireless, when you print the network will send the command via the router to the server. Just think of it as replacing a PC that would need leaving on all the time just to enable printing, you'll save on the electric too!

mudgekin

If I wasn't an old married woman I would give you a kiss, instead you can have :beer:

thanks again..you are a star

Slartibardfast_2

Cheers! No worries.

st999

It has a USB 2 connection as well, does it not? So it should work with either wireless or USB.

Stan

mudgekin

I think it has. I have nothing set up wirelessly at home as neither of us would have a clue how to do it whicj is why I have been asking would it work with cables and connected to my PC the same as the old HP we had

Slartibardfast_2

Nope it'll still need a server as it doesn't have a built in host. USB2 merely denotes the data transfer speed of the usb bus for the cable connection. You can't plug it in to a dongle as it has no host system, and no built in wireless.