Wireless Printer Help

I have 40 megabit service through my cable company. The modem they
provided has wireless capability. The combination of the modem being
in a closet and the wireless not being all that great led me to run
two CAT5 lines: 1) to my main computer; 2) to a central location in
the house where I've installed another network.

My problem: when I'm printing from my main computer, the print signal
is going through the router provided by my cable company. I don't
want to have two wireless networks up and going. Is there a way to
either: 1) setup my main computer to route print jobs to the new
router; or 2) setup my cable company router to send all print jobs to
my new router (since it's obviously plugged directly into the cable
modem router).

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

On Sat, 21 Apr 2012 06:52:38 -0700 (PDT), crbutler01@yahoo.com wrote:

>I have 40 megabit service through my cable company. The modem they
>provided has wireless capability. The combination of the modem being
>in a closet and the wireless not being all that great led me to run
>two CAT5 lines: 1) to my main computer; 2) to a central location in
>the house where I've installed another network.

What does "another network" mean? You installed an access point, a
router, or what?

>My problem: when I'm printing from my main computer, the print signal
>is going through the router provided by my cable company.

How is the printer connected?

>I don't want to have two wireless networks up and going.

Can you disable the wireless portion of the ISP-supplied modem since
you aren't using it?

>Is there a way to either: 1) setup my main computer to route print
>jobs to the new router;

New router? It looks like this misconfigured device should have been
set up as an access point, not a router.

>or 2) setup my cable company router to send all print jobs to
>my new router (since it's obviously plugged directly into the cable
>modem router).

You forgot to mention how the printer is connected and while you're at
it, you forgot to mention why you care about how print jobs make it
from your computer to your printer.

On Sat, 21 Apr 2012 06:52:38 -0700 (PDT), crbutler01@yahoo.com wrote:

>I have 40 megabit service through my cable company.

I'm jealous.

>The modem they
>provided has wireless capability. The combination of the modem being
>in a closet and the wireless not being all that great led me to run
>two CAT5 lines: 1) to my main computer; 2) to a central location in
>the house where I've installed another network.

Presumably, the other network is just an ethernet switch, not another
router. What box do you have installed at this "other" network? Maker
and model please. If this box is another router, you goofed and will
need to replace it with an ethernet switch.

>My problem: when I'm printing from my main computer, the print signal
>is going through the router provided by my cable company.

Actually, it's probably just going from one of the ethernet ports on
the back of the unspecified make and model router, to another port on
the same router. While strictly speaking, it's going "through" the
router, it's really going from one part of your LAN (local area
network) to another part of the same LAN, and not through the router
from LAN to WAN (internet).

>I don't
>want to have two wireless networks up and going.

It's done all the time, but you don't need it here.

>Is there a way to
>either: 1) setup my main computer to route print jobs to the new
>router;

Yes. If all your devices are on the LAN side of the router, with all
the IP addresses in the same class C IP block such as 192.168.1.xxx
where xxx is 1 thru 254, then everything on the LAN side should talk
to everything else on the LAN side.

> 2) setup my cable company router to send all print jobs to
>my new router (since it's obviously plugged directly into the cable
>modem router).

Same as #1.

>Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Hint: If you post a question with such a vague description, you'll
get equally vague answers. Make and model of all the boxes involved,
including the printer, might be useful to supply a more specific
answer.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

crbutler01@yahoo.com wrote:

<snip>

> Is there a way to
> either: 1) setup my main computer to route print jobs to the new
> router; or 2) setup my cable company router to send all print jobs to
> my new router (since it's obviously plugged directly into the cable
> modem router).
>
> Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Dear CR,

I am new to networking, but I was still able to connect two
routers wirelessly using the information on the DD-WRT Wiki
site. In case you don't know, DD-WRT is an alternate
firmware for routers, and if you never heard of it, you
probably don't have it on either router. Nevertheless,
their Wiki is a great source of information about all sorts
of networking issues. It sounds to me that you need to
start at the page about linking routers:

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Linking_Routers

It will direct you to other pages with more detailed
information about various ways to do the linking. Even if
you don't install DD-WRT on either router, you can probably
adapt the information to the OEM firmware for your routers.
Once you get control of linking your routers, it should be
easier to get your printer to work the way you want.

Neil