My Lexmar Prospect 2800 wireless all in one jobby has always been a pain from out of the box, but after about a day of trying I managed to get it set up – this was just over a year ago.

Now, every now and then, I’ll go to print and my laptop tells me it can’t communicate. My router network map shows it as disconnected, everything I go into shows it as offline, or turned off, apart from the Lexmark Printer application, which shows it as ready????

However when I go to the printer, it recognises the network, shows a wireless connection and good signal strength. I’ve tried a reset with the push-button method, but the printer and router don’t seem to connect, although this has randomly worked before.

I’ve tried switching off and on again, before anyone suggests.

I don’t know where to go on my PC to find and manually make a connection to the printer and I’ll be buggered if I’m bringing it in to the same room every time to plug in an ethernet and go through the wholoe set-up process every time.

If I was to add the printer manually, the ‘add printer’ process asks me for the address of the printer, but I’m not the most computer literate and haven’t got a clue what it might be.

Please help, or should I boot it out of the window and buy a better one?

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSK1D3bZhRs[/video]

Lexmark, say no more………

It ‘s ok, just needed threatening a bit more and another off and on and all was fine

STR- we had some Dell wireless printers (apparently rebranded Lexmarks): we gave up (asked for our money back) after a few weeks. We now have wired Hp lasers. No problems ever with them (apart from power use).

Key probs were: printer turned on before laptop.
Laptiop turned on before printer.
Router turned on before and / or after printer.

Edit – All the above from Dell support. Basically, what time of day is it – ok, printer before / after laptop – Option 2 – it’s a know it all: they turned them on at the same time: aka user error!
There was so much faffing we got rid and bought a proper (hp) network printer.

I dont know if that helps at all? Life’s too short!

Just smash it up. It won’t solve owt, but you’ll feel better for a few minutes, as you look at it’s shattered remains whilst screaming ‘See? Not so bastard clever now, are you, you ****ing **** of a thing?’ Proper teach it a lesson.

Works for me. I always do this in front of the other devices, so they get the idea, and know not to annoy me.

Truly, whichever madman came up with the idea of combining the unreliable, pernickity 21st century pissyness of wireless networking with the old-school ornery stubbornness of personal print technology was a sadistic genius. It’s a nerd’s worst nightmare.

I have one here. I’m scared to use the thing, to the extent that I’d rather drive five miles to the office to print a letter than try to get it done at home…

I avoid wireless devices like the Plague. I use a dirty great long bit of CAT5 cable from router to computer. The Wi-Fi would be ok, then suddenly, without any reason whatsoever, simply stop working. I’ve sat there screaming ‘the ****ing thing is next to you you useless machine, how much closer do you need it to be????’ Nope. Still won’t work. Try everything I can think of. Nowt. Then maybe some time later, it suddenly decides to work again. ****.

Can’t go wrong with wires. The USB cable on a mouse enables you to swing the thing against a wall, if you want need to smash it. Mouses don’t last long in my house.