Looking for some help setting up a small office network. We have connectivity issues on the far end of the office (also where the printers are located) because we are so far from the router. A wired connection is not an option, so we bought a PLW1010 PowerLINE 1000 Adapter.
All was great until the wireless printers jumped on the extender as well, since it has a stronger signal. The problem is, once they jump off the Comcast supplied router and onto the extender, all of our Mac computers (about 50% of our office) lose connection to the router. I think this may be due to the IP address change, goes from a "192." IP to a "10." IP address. I'm no networking wizard here... so hoping that makes sense.
Obviously, this doesn't work well for our office. However, not having a good WiFi signal doesn't work well either. Any suggestions are welcome.
P.S. before anyone asks, resetting the devices does not help. The printers view as "offline" and cannot be communicated with once they jump on the extender from the Macs.
@ThePiv wrote: A wired connection is not an option, so we bought a PLW1010 PowerLINE 1000 Adapter.
These things don't make sense to me. The Powerline device is a wired option. At least, it can be. That would be better than wifi.
Have you tried wired (LAN) use of the HP OfficeJet Pro 8610? It seems to offer it. So does the Canon.
Maybe people aren't on the LAN.
@ThePiv wrote: The problem is, once they jump off the Comcast supplied router and onto the extender, all of our Mac computers (about 50% of our office) lose connection to the router.
In other words you have two wifi sources? Forgive me, I am having trouble picturing the layout of your network.
I suspect that you are right on thinking that you need to tweak it in some way to force things to use the right wifi link. Someone may be able to help if they know the geography.
In general, issues with wifi printers come down to the settings on the printer rather than the router, but your network seems complicated.
I should add, our office has never had IT support. So the placement of routers, printers, etc. are not ideal.
With the extender, yes there is two wifi sources. They have the same SSID & password, but two "routers" in a sense. The problem is, they both assign different IP addresses depending on which router they are on, which may be why the Mac's cant see the printers anymore when they connect to the extender.
Although a wired option would be feasible, the problem would still be there. If I hard wired say, the Canon printer to the extender, our Macs would not be able to connect to them. As soon as the printers switch over to the Extender, they go "offline" for most of the office. There are no settings on the printers that I can find that are of any use. Plus all of our printers are connected on powerstrips, which from what I understand won't work for the extender if I tried to plug it into one. There are not many outlets in the office (it's old).
They have the same SSID & password, but two "routers" in a sense.
This is not always recommended, because wifi clients do not know which wifi source to connect to. Instead of finding the strongest source, they may get stuck on the weaker of the two. Having two SSIDs (they can have the same password) creates two distinct networks.
It strikes me that once a printer has found a wifi source it should stick with it and not switch to a different source. Unless you are moving the printers around the office. Maybe using two SSIDs could let you lock the printers on to fixed wifi sources
If it is really the source of the problems, you should be able to tell the router to reserve permanent IP addresses for your printers.
@ThePiv wrote: Plus all of our printers are connected on powerstrips, which from what I understand won't work for the extender if I tried to plug it into one.
That is the theory. In practice many people use powerstrips to connect powerline plugs. I do. Indeed, like you I have too few sockets to allow me to plug the powerline plugs directly into wall sockets.
One thing that isn't a good idea is to use fancy powerstrips that try to suppress "interference". In the case of powerline devices, the interference is what makes them work.
I will look to see if the router will reserve an IP address for the printers. That might work.
I'm not sure I can create two unique networks with SSIDs and have them work. The computers closest to the router connect via that point, where those near the extender connect via that point. If they have two different SSID's, whoever is on the main router cannot print/connect to printers on the extender, and visa-versa. All the printers are near the extender.
Like I said, our office setup is not idea. I a perfect world we'd have one printer down near one router, and another at the other end. Not so.
The problem here is unlikely the Extender - much more, you should not operate two NAT routers (with the second Internet port "stacked" on the LAN of the first router port). The way to go is to reconfigure the "inner" NAT router to a plain AP (access point) only. This will give you a single LAN subnet ie. in the 192.168.1.x/24 network. Even with the extender, all systms are operating on a plain layer 2 network then, and able to communicate direct ie. with the printer.
