Nighthawk MR60 and HP M454 printer-computer can't find printer

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Eaglewingmd wrote:

I am on the low end of understanding how all this goes together. Forgive what may appear to be a longer than necessary back story.

Have a Nighthawk MR60 working great. Have a HP Laser M454dw. Had a Dell laptop. Everyone was happy on the network.

Then the Dell died, so I replaced with a HP laptop.

The HP laptop could not find the printer wirelessly. I, of course, assumed a printer problem. I was on the phone with HP support for 3 hours. During that time we reset the router, reset the printer, reset the laptop. At times we could ping the printer but when they attempted to find and install the printer, it could not be found. (Actually 1 time on a previous call to them they did find the printer, but then the connection was lost the next time I wanted to use the printer)

In the end they had me setup my phone hotspot for the laptop and printer. When we did that we could find the printer, connect and be happy - except I wasn't because that wasn't a great solution.

They said my network was the problem.

So I found my old Asus router and hooked it up, to prove them wrong. Once I connected my laptop to the Asus and the printer to the Asus I was able to connect to my printer wirelessly. Whoops! I guess  it is my network.

So right now I have 2 networks, the Nighthawk and the Asus. When I want to print I have to use the Asus.

But it shouldn't be that way.

I found a thread  HP Color Laser keeps dropping offline  but none of those suggestions helped.

And   Wifi Direct    does not connect.

Any help would be appreciated.

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Wireless printing is great in theory.  In reality it has its' issues when both the computer and the printer are connected to the network over a wireless connection.  Every instruction from your computer to your printer goes over two Wi-Fi hops (computer-router-printer).  Every instruction from your printer to your computer goes over two Wi-Fi hops (printer-router-computer).  Making for a total of 4 Wi-Fi hops for a round trip.

The most reliable configuration is to connect your HP Laser M454dw direct to your MR60 network via an Ethernet cable.  This configuration makes it easier for your computer to find your network printer, but also any mobile devices like phones and tablets connected to your Wi-Fi.  And, only two hops round trip for instructions between devices and your printer.

Start off by powering down your MR60 network.  If the devices have a power cord, disconnect it.

Power up your upstream modem and let it boot and stabilize.  (what make and model is this modem?)

Connect the Ethernet cord to your MR60, power it up and let it boot and stabilize.

Connect an Ethernet cord from your HP Laser M454dw to your MR60 and power up the printer.  Give it time to go through the startup process.

Power up your new computer and connect to your Wi-Fi.  Confirm your Windows network settings have your network profile set to private and not to public.  You using Windows 10 or 11?  Log in to your MR60 user interface and confirm your HP Laser M454dw is one of the connected devices.

On your computer you can go to your add a network printer section and it should be able to find your HP Laser M454dw.

A lot of steps, but they have to work together and in sequence.  You will be much happier with the way your printer responds and prints.