In my review of the Brother laser printer–Brother MFC-9440CN Review-Great Printer for a Small Office–I said that I couldn’t get the remote configuration part to work. I blamed, erroneously, the Brother software. Yesterday I figured it all out.
HP, through Hill and Knowlton, contacted me to try out the new HP MediaSmart home server and it came yesterday. I set it up, boy does it look cool-lights, blinking, whirring-but I had the same problem. I couldn’t connect to it from either my Vista or XP machines. Hmmm. This made me wonder. What if it isn’t software but a hardware problem. Specifically what if it isn’t the server or printer, but the router causing the issue.
Being the geek I am, I have an extra wired router hanging around. Well I set it up … wired things to it and … yeah everything worked just fine. Great, it’s my Netgear g router. Now … what next.
I have a Meraki WiFi mesh router too … so I could get online wirelessly with that but … couldn’t get to my network. Crap.
So what about connecting the two routers together? Trying the wired as master and wireless as slave … well I could sorta get online, but still couldn’t get to my network. After tinkering for a while (good thing there were Christmas specials on), I gave up. I reset the Netgear router to factory and got it back into operation. I’ve also learned that although it says it can do WPA, it’s unstable. I had to switch to WEP to maintain a connection.
I might try having the Netgear as master and the wired as slave, but you know I think the real solution is a new router. Not in the budget right now, though. I guess I’ll keep my eye out for 8 port g routers on Boxing Day.
It bugs me that I can’t get the Netgear router to work. I’ve had it for, what, four years now? It’s been pretty good, but time and technology have passed it by.
So Santa, I’ve been a good boy this year, could you leave an 8-port (okay 4 will do, but I do have more than 4 devices) 802.11g router under the tree for me? Thanks.
