Can't share printer between wireless nodes

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.internet.wireless (More info?)

Please help with an unusual problem.

Here's the setup:

Cable Modem
Linksys BEFSR41 Wired Router/Nat box (4 port Ethernet Switch)
Dell PowerEdge 600SC running Windows 2000 Professional, with shared
Laserjet printer,
connected to Ethernet switch via Cat 5 cable
Linux 2.4 Whitebox PC running Samba file sharing, MySQL, and Apache,
connected to Ethernet switch via Cat 5 cable
Linksys WAP11 802.11B Access Point, with WEP enabled,
connected to Ethernet switch via Cat 5 cable
One Whitebox PC running Win98SE, with a shared Okidata printer and
Linksys WMP11 PCI 802.11B card
One Windows 2000 Pro Laptop, with Cisco 240 802.11B PCMCIA card

All PC's, both wired and wireless, can use the Samba shares on the Linux
server and the
shared Laserjet printer on the W2KPro box.
All PC's, both wired and wireless, can access the Internet OK.
The wired W2K Pro PC can use the shared Okidata printer on the Win98SE
(wireless) box.

The problem:

The laptop can NOT reach the shared printer on the (wireless) Win98SE PC
when it is also using a wireless conneciton. The Win98SE PC appears in
Network Neighborhood, but any attempt to reach it times out with a "Server
.... could not be found on the network" error, and the laptop can't ping the
IP address of the Win98 PC.

However, when I disable the laptop's PCMCIA card, and connect the laptop via
Cat 5 cable to the Ethernet switch, the Win98SE PC shares show correctly and
print jobs run OK. Ping is also OK with the wired connection.

* Since WEP is enabled, I'm sure the Laptop and Win98 PC are using the same
access point
* Running "arp -a" on the laptop shows the correct MAC address for the
Win98SE PC following the timeout error
* Both the laptop and the Win98SE PC show Good signal strength and have
excellent download speeds from the Internet.
* All machines are set to the same workgroup name. All are in the same
subnet.
* Disabling the wired connection on the laptop makes no difference.
* I've tried adding the printer to the laptop using an IP address instead of
the Win98SE PC's
NetBIOS name, and there's no change: wired works, wireless doesn't.

Please tell me how to cure this problem. TIA.

William

--
William Warren
(Filter noise from my address for direct replies.)

 

[Mike]

Archived from groups: alt.internet.wireless (More info?)

I had a similar problem a couple of months ago.

I converted to wireless and couldn't get "interconnectivity" between my
networked machines and had the same error messages. On this forum,
someone suggested dis-abling file & printer sharing and re-enabling it.
It worked for my machines.

Who knows, might work for your laptop.
Mike.

William Warren wrote:
> Please help with an unusual problem.
>
> Here's the setup:
>
> Cable Modem
> Linksys BEFSR41 Wired Router/Nat box (4 port Ethernet Switch)
> Dell PowerEdge 600SC running Windows 2000 Professional, with shared
> Laserjet printer,
> connected to Ethernet switch via Cat 5 cable
> Linux 2.4 Whitebox PC running Samba file sharing, MySQL, and Apache,
> connected to Ethernet switch via Cat 5 cable
> Linksys WAP11 802.11B Access Point, with WEP enabled,
> connected to Ethernet switch via Cat 5 cable
> One Whitebox PC running Win98SE, with a shared Okidata printer and
> Linksys WMP11 PCI 802.11B card
> One Windows 2000 Pro Laptop, with Cisco 240 802.11B PCMCIA card
>
> All PC's, both wired and wireless, can use the Samba shares on the Linux
> server and the
> shared Laserjet printer on the W2KPro box.
> All PC's, both wired and wireless, can access the Internet OK.
> The wired W2K Pro PC can use the shared Okidata printer on the Win98SE
> (wireless) box.
>
> The problem:
>
> The laptop can NOT reach the shared printer on the (wireless) Win98SE PC
> when it is also using a wireless conneciton. The Win98SE PC appears in
> Network Neighborhood, but any attempt to reach it times out with a "Server
> ... could not be found on the network" error, and the laptop can't ping the
> IP address of the Win98 PC.
>
> However, when I disable the laptop's PCMCIA card, and connect the laptop via
> Cat 5 cable to the Ethernet switch, the Win98SE PC shares show correctly and
> print jobs run OK. Ping is also OK with the wired connection.
>
> * Since WEP is enabled, I'm sure the Laptop and Win98 PC are using the same
> access point
> * Running "arp -a" on the laptop shows the correct MAC address for the
> Win98SE PC following the timeout error
> * Both the laptop and the Win98SE PC show Good signal strength and have
> excellent download speeds from the Internet.
> * All machines are set to the same workgroup name. All are in the same
> subnet.
> * Disabling the wired connection on the laptop makes no difference.
> * I've tried adding the printer to the laptop using an IP address instead of
> the Win98SE PC's
> NetBIOS name, and there's no change: wired works, wireless doesn't.
>
> Please tell me how to cure this problem. TIA.
>
> William
>