HP1320nw Wireless Printers losing connection after 10 mins

Hi,

For some reason our printers are losing connection with our AP after approx
10 minutes, they then take approx 5 mins to renegotiate with the AP &
obtain an IP address.

We use a 3Com Office Connect Access Point (3CRWE454G72) to connect a series
of HP1320nw printers. The printers are set to DHCP but are registered in
the APs client list to always receive the same IP, we have also set the
printers to manual IP but the problem remains. We have changed a lot of
other settings too, but to no avail. If anyone has any ideas I'd appreciate
it - I can provide more info if needed.

Thanks, Jason.

On Tue, 07 Jun 2005 08:50:37 GMT, Jason Snape
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>For some reason our printers are losing connection with our AP after approx
>10 minutes, they then take approx 5 mins to renegotiate with the AP &
>obtain an IP address.
>
>We use a 3Com Office Connect Access Point (3CRWE454G72) to connect a series
>of HP1320nw printers. The printers are set to DHCP but are registered in
>the APs client list to always receive the same IP, we have also set the
>printers to manual IP but the problem remains. We have changed a lot of
>other settings too, but to no avail. If anyone has any ideas I'd appreciate
>it - I can provide more info if needed.

Well, I don't have a clue or any experience with the HP1320nw wireless
printer. A bit of Googling showed that the wireless device acts as a
wireless client instead of the usual print server. That's backwards
from what I'm familiar with.

My guess(tm) is that something is timing out. I see 3 possible items:
1. ARP cache on the 3Com access point.
2. DHCP cache on the 3Com access point.
3. Ridiculously short DHCP lease expiration time in 3com access
point.
4. Something in the printer is going to sleep taking the wireless
client with it.
5. Some bug in the static DHCP mechanism in the 3Com access point.

The trick is to isolate which one is the culprit.
Some suggestions are:

1. Setup a slow ping of the printer(s) from the LAN. The idea is to
keep some traffic going to defeat any kind of "go to power save on no
traffic" type of mechanism. Unfortunately, this will also keep the
various caches alive at the same time and cannot be used to isolate
the problem. However, it's a good test to see if it can be tricked
into not timing out or expiring.

2. Try replacing the 3Com access point with any other access point.
depending on LAN complexity, this may be awkward, but will isolate the
problem to either the access point or the printer(s). Methinks it's
worth doing. Perhaps adding a 2nd different model access point to the
LAN, and using it to service only the printers might be the way to try
this.

3. The 5 minutes to renew the DHCP lease is ridiculous. Something is
broken. Something might be trying to do a DNS lookup on NETBIOS
names, but even that only takes about 60 seconds to expire. Something
else is going on. Wireless interference from other devices perhaps?

4. Look for setting in the printer involving power saving and idle
time outs.

Lots of guesswork, but maybe some of the above will point you in the
right direction.

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558