I am having a problem similar to others on here being able to print wirelessly to a Dell A940 that is connected by USB to an XP Compaq laptop from my Vista Lenovo. I have tried adding the printer as a local port (i.e. \\LAPTOP\DELLA940), and can see the printer, and send print jobs to it, but they just idle there while the printer does nothing. What makes this even more confusing is that I am able to connect to other (Lexmark) printers on both my home and work workgroups, and can print with no problems. It seems to be a Dell specific issue and one that I have wrestled with for the better part of a week. Can anyone help

Hi Sandmc
Welcome to G2G
I assume that you have print sharing enabled and that the printer has the shared symbol on it.
Can you try this for me please
1. Click Start, and then click Network. (Or you can click Start, type ncpa.cpl into the search box, and press ENTER).
2. Click on the Network and Sharing Center, and then click Manage Network Connections.
3. Right click on the Local Area Connection or the connection you are using.
4. Select the Internet Protocol version 4 (TCP/IPv4)
5. Click the Advanced button under the General tab.
6. Click the WINS tab.
7. Click the Enable NetBIOS Over TCP/IP button.
8. Click Ok.

Cheers
Peterm

I have tried what you have suggested, and there is no change...can still see the printer, and send a job to it, the dialog box says that it is printing, but the printer never does anything

Thanks again

sandmc

It is always hard to get all in one printers to network.
have you loaded the dell software onto the vista machine.
Instead of setting the printer to local port try this on the vista.

1 Click Start→Settings→Printers. 2 Click Add Printer to launch the Add Printer wizard. 3 Click Network Print Server. 4 Select the network printer from the Shared printers list. If the printer is not listed, type in the path of the printer in the text box. For example:\\<server host name>\<shared printer name> The server host name is the name of the server computer that identifies it to the network. The shared printer name is the name assigned during the server installation process. 5 Click OK. If this is a new printer, you may be prompted to install a printer driver. If no system driver is available, then you will need to provide a path to available drivers. 6 Select whether you want this printer as the default printer for this client,
Cheers
peterm

This post has been edited by peterm: Apr 28 2008, 05:46 PM

I have tried to add it as a network printer, as per your suggestion, but am unable to do so. It will locate the printer in the proper location on the network, and will attempt to connect, and will ask to install a driver (which is already installed on my computer). The printer installation dialog box will stop responding a about a minute or so, and then will give me an Error 0x000003e3 - Windows cannot connect with the printer

This is odd. I have been reading the manual on this printer and it should network.

Do you go through the steps and reinstall the driver anyway ?.


Is the lexmark connected to this laptop ?. If No is the laptop in the same workgroup as the other computers.

Are you running any firewalls that the dell printer has not been added to. eg zone alarm trend micro etc?
Cheers
peterm

This post has been edited by peterm: May 5 2008, 12:51 AM

I am able to use it on the network from another laptop (a gateway)




I tried, but attempted to use the windows update option to make sure I have the most current driver, but after searching, Windows update cannot find a driver for a Dell AIO940. I did however go to the dell website, and make sure that I have the most current driver for Vista on my laptop



The lexmark is not connected to the laptop, but to another desktop on the same network in the same workgroup. We are a small office, and only have one workgroup. I am able to print to it wirelessly.



No...No firewalls other than windows


Thanks again,

sandmc

Try this please
After installing drivers, go to Control Panel > Printers
-Right click on the printer, go to Properties, then the Ports Tab. Disable
"Enable bidirectional support"


This was meant to be on the vista machine I have been re reading the post and noticed I left that out - sorry

Peterm

This post has been edited by peterm: May 6 2008, 08:21 PM

I have tried your latest suggestion, and still am confronted by the "Problem Communicating with the Printer" dialog box. What baffles me is that I can print directly to the printer with a USB hook up (confirming that the driver is properly installed), and can see and connect to the printer wirelessly, but cannot print wirelessly. Other computers on the network can, but they are all XP machines instead of Vista.

Just thinking out loud here. Can we add the vista print driver to th xp machine ?
On the xp machine go to the dell printer. Right click, left click properties, Click on advanced, Click on add driver
Follow the wizard and see if it lets you add the vista driver.
If the above does not work or interferes with the non vista computers then add the dell printer as a second copy on the xp machine and choose the vista printer driver. It is ok to have more then 1 copy of the same printer on the one machine.
Cheers
peterm

This post has been edited by peterm: May 9 2008, 04:24 PM

I tried adding a second copy by installing the Vista driver on the XP machine, but still am receiving the error 0x00000e3 message, and am unable to connect to the printer.

Are there any spaces in the printername?
are you running 32bit vista or 64
Cheers
Peterm

There are no spaces in the name...I am running 32 bit vista

Peterm

I am not sure what I have done...I tried reinstalling yesterday, and also deleted and restored a connection to the port that I had created, and now I can print wirelessly

Thanks for all your help!

Mark

Hi Mark
Glad you got it going.
Sorry I was unable to help.
Cheers
Peterm