HP C309a ethernet connection issue.

[speed3b]

Hi, I have an HP Photosmart Premium AiO C309a. I have the printer connected via ethernet cable to my linksys wrt54g router. I am choosing to have it connected as a wired device because of the quality of the connection. The problem I am having is that the device refuses to obtain an IP address from my router when its link speed is set to Automatic, 100-Full, 100-Half, or 10-Half. I am only able to get the device to connect using a 10-Full link speed. I have had the device for awhile now and it was working fine set to Automatic. I'm fairly certain I am using the ethernet cable that came with the printer, which should be either a cat5 or cat5e, so the cable is capable of handling it. Additionally, as i mentioned, it was working fine before and suddenly is no longer connecting to my network on those settings. I attempted to contact HP support, which they were no help to me. They said that if the device is working in 10-Full than  the device is working fine. They said they had no networking specialist at HP which could help me with the issue and that I would need to contact radioshack or bestbuy to solve the [not] issue. Im fairly confident it is not a networking issue and that it is more than likely something with the printer or ethernet port on the printer or the printer itself.

I also have an HP C309g-m which is working no problem with the link speed set to automatic.

My concern is that if the ethernet port is degrading on the device than eventually the functionality of the ethernet port will fail soon.

The printer is accessed by many different computers, whose operating systems range from Windows XP to Windows 7.

I think that it's pretty crappy that HP support is saying there is nothing wrong with the device even though its link speed is only operating at 10%.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks!

[PrintDoc]

Let's reset the printer.  Turn it off, hold the # and 6 keys while and a bit after turning it back on.

[speed3b]

I tried that before posting originally and it didn't work. It didn't even reset any of the printer settings. I held down the # and 6 key's till the home screen returned. Sorry, I should have mentioned it.

[PrintDoc · Accepted solution]

OK, let's assume its not the printer for now.  Make sure your router has the latest firmware and that it is restarted (pull the power plug for a bit).

Also, replace the Ethernet cable, try a CAT6 cable.

[speed3b]

Ok, I have some more info. I was able to do some of what you requested. I updated my routers firmware. I'm using ddwrt firmware and it was a little over 2 years out of date. So I updated that. After updating I looked at the network status page on my other printer which is the C309g-m. The link speed is set to auto but the link speed was running at 10TX Half Duplex. I have now forced that to 100TX Full Duplex and it is running no problems. I'm not sure why that one would negotiate a 10TX Half Duplex connection but its not having a problem running at 100 Full now.

Now to the troublesome printer. I then took the cable (which I can confirm is a CAT5 cable) running to it and tried plugging it into the C309g-m printer. The printer wouldn't grab an IP address either from my router. I took the cable that was originally plugged into the C309g-m printer (which i can confirm is a CAT5e cable) and it was able to successful resolve its IP address with my router at 100TX Full Duplex. So, you are correct, it is not the printer. I tried another CAT5 cable that I have, and I can't get that one to run at 100TX Full Duplex either. So I'm not really sure whats going on. The CAT5 cable should work at 100Mbps, but it is not on either of the printers. Furthermore, I just tested the CAT5 cable with my laptop and it refuses to connect to my router as well. So perhaps my router is on the fritz and does not like CAT5 cables. Until I get my hands on another cat5e cable I'll have to run one of my printers at 10TX-Half Duplex I guess.

Thanks for the help.