Hey all. I have connected a new Linksys router (8 port, wired) to my dsl modem (ISP: AT&T) and had the CD that came with the router set up everything automatically. I have two computers (both windows xp) connected through the router to the internet. I also have three large format plotters connected. I can communicate to everything using the two computers, however I can't communicate to one of the plotters, even though all the lights are on for the five connections (two computers, three plotters).

I've triple checked the network settings on the non-communicative plotter to make sure the ip address is different than any other address. I've made sure the tcp/ip gateway and subnet mask match the settings on the communicative plotters and still no luck. I've already checked the port on the router and that is ok.

Any ideas? The plotter with the problem is a Xerox 8830. I have a Xerox 8850 which works fine on the network, and the third plotter is a Canon ir C3220, which also works fine.

Thanks in advance for your help. If you need more information to help trouble shoot this, feel free to ask.

Thanks for the suggestions and help.

I cannot ping it, but I do have the software required for the plotter. The lights showing connectivity are on, both on the router and the NIC physically located on the xerox plotter, so the cable itself is not an issue. I really don't believe the problem to be on the hardware side.

The thing that gets me is that the lights for the network are ON! And yet, I cannot ping.....

Any other ideas? Thanks to all in advance!

Hey Riser. Thanks for the help.

I've pinged 127.0.0.1: success.

I've pinged my plotter: no response.

I've pinged other pcs and plotters on the network: success.

I've used different cables in the same ports: can't ping the plotter with the existing problem.

I've used different cables in different ports: still can't ping.

I'm not sure what you mean by the whole "punch down the wall" statement. Maybe you could elaborate.

Here's another side note. If I connect the plotter to my pc directly (I have two nic cards on the pc) then I can communicate to the plotter, but my connection to the router goes dead. The way I'd like to have it set up is everything (2 pcs, 3 plotters) connect to the router, and of course the router to the modem (dsl). Does that help isolate the problem?

Thanks for your help.

It sounds as if the plotter itself is the problem, as the other plotters function correctly. That particular model of the plotter does the manufacture mention anything about using it only connected to a PC, not a router/switch etc (this is a long shot).

So far everything has been tested good and the Plotter itself is starting to look like the culprit. When you connected the plotter directly to the pc was that via USB cable? Or via a patch cable?

Replace the cable from the plotter to the router. If it worked when connected directly to your PC, you're using a Crossover cable. You'll need to use a standard "patch" cable; not a "crossover."

That leaves a problem with the plotter at this point.

If you can't ping it, yet have it set to a static IP, the network card wouldn't be working. Yet you say you can hook it up via network directly to a computer and it works? If that is the case, you could configure it to a PC then share it out for all other computers to connect to. The 'serving' PC would need to be on to be able to print to it.

Hello every body

Recently I installed a new 8850. I had a similar problem I´ve changed the ip on the plotter, and I cant reach the ip from any computer on my LAN.

I activated the DHCP on the 8850, it got the 192.168.0.167 addres. Then the ping´s began to answer.

Finally I put back the manual ip and de activated the dhcp on the 8850.Ping´s are still working fine.

I could configure the rest of the softare and print.

I only have one little problem, when we were trying to retrived the scanned documents saved on the server, it was very very slow. the most interesting thing is that we had tested the scanner using a cross wire and it worked very well, we tested again with the cross wired and still down load very fast the sacanned images from the server. If we plugged the plotter server across our switch... it´s very slow.

I used different ports and patch cordons and there was any change.

There are a lot of printer´s (xerox docu color), HP plotters and everything works very fine.

Any idea