Router vs switch

I have three computers and one printer connected to a router and all
three machines were very easy to setup when I attached the printer.


Two machines are Win7 and one is Ubuntu.

I just used the 'connect printer' dialog and all worked fine.


I now want to add several more machines to the network, but the router
only has four ports, so I tried a network switch with numerous ports.


All machines can connect to the WWW just fine, but none can find the
printer.


I saw an on-line tutorial for setting up a printer with a network switch
(as opposed to router) and the advice was to /not/ use the 'find
printer' wizard but to create a local tcp/ip port with the printer's
address.


I am positive I am using the correct tcp/ip value but the printer is not
seen. What did I possibly miss?

 

Per philo :

I wonder if "network switch" is the same thing that I call a "switch".

Reason: I know virtually nothing about networking, yet I'll hang what I
call a "switch" on my network with no problems at all. Right now, I
have four switches hanging off of my router. None of them have any IP
setup parms or any way to configure them. They are strictly
plug-and-play - no configuration possible.

How about a make/model?

Only other thing I can think of (remember, I claim to know *nothing*) is
a faulty cable/connection between the printer and the switch.

 

Yes. "switch" and I have tried several different ones

 

I just needed to plug my switch into my own Linksys router rather than
directly to AT7T's gateway router.

It all works but I sure have a mess of cables around here.

 

That makes sense then. You were attempting to connect to "the other side"
(the WAN side) of your router.

Question: do you really need two routers daisy chained?

 

If I understand your question correctly: you can get a network switch
which can have more ports than your router (I have 16 ports in mine) and
connect one of the open ports on your router to the switch.

In order for your printer to be recognized on the network by the
computers, you need a print server, which also has an IP address and
connect it to your router, that is, if you have an open port, otherwise,
connect the print server to the switch and make sure the IP address of
the print server matches that of your network. The print server has to
have a unique IP address.