Can I use my DSL modem/router to make my LaserJet 4 Plus a home network printer?

[Jim_Asman]

Aside from the computer and the printer, what other network devices are attached to the router/hubs.

On my win 10 computer the LJ4 just installed and worked without incident.

I believe that the "gateway" is the IP of the router, and I would change it to conform to the IPs of your computer and the LJ4. Among my stuff I have...

192.168.100.1      Router

192.168.100.2      Unix

192.168.100.4      LJ4

192.168.100.9      LJ 5000

192.168.100.10    Win 10

192.168.100.19    Win 7

192.168.100.63    XP

Lets see what David has to say, but maybe if you get everything of the same IP range and then delete and reinstall the printer it will all be fine. I find that OFTEN with windows a reboot fixes many problems.

[Carandini]

Sorry that I'm so clueless about networks, but how do I produce a similar list of IP addresses?  The only thing I know how to do is "ipconfig", from which I see seven headings, only two of which have IP addresses: "Ethernet adapter ethernet", which has the printer IP address I created yesterday, and "Wireless LAN adapter WI-FI", which still has the original IP address.  I was pleased to see that the Ethernet adapter IP address remained after reboot.  I did try another test print today after rebooting, but with no success.

Perhaps I should explain that what I"ve been calling a "modem/router" is a box supplied by my phone company that  provides my DSL service through a phone line connection.  My computers connect to this box by wi-fi only.  I used to have my old XP computer (which doesn't have wireless communication capability) plugged into it, but decided not to have it accessible to the Internet anymore given that Windows doesn't provide updates for it.

[Jim_Asman]

First, I would change the IP of your router/wifi to conform to the "new reality!" 😉 

How many wired ports does the router have?

Once you have changed the IP of the router,  as I stated before, I would delete the printer from the win 10 box and reinstall and give it another try. It may very will be that the router IP is irrelevant, I don't know.

[Jim_Asman]

Something just occurred to me. In your current printer installation, does the driver "know" about the network location of the printer? If not, that would explain why you get the error when trying to print.

[Carandini]

I used the device manager to "remove" the printer.  When I re-installed it, Windows 10 called it by its name with "Copy 1", making me think it hadn't really deleted it. Sure enough, the test failed again. One of the error descriptions was "remote device won't accept the connection", IP address "is not set up to accept connections on port "9100"".  I tried to remove the printer again and force Windows 10 to call it the original name without Copy 1.  It refused, so I let Copy 1 stand.  I tried one more test page, and to my great astonishment it printed!  I really don't understand what happened, but I am happy that I apparently can now print from my Windows 10 computer to my HP LaserJet 4 Plus!  Thanks very much to all of you who patiently guided me through this confusing process.

[Jim_Asman]

Great that you have it working and I suppose we should just let sleeping dogs lie...

The message thread that I first pointed you to made great reference to the NetJet not using port 9100 but some other port number. Now that you are an expert :-), you might have a look at those messages and see if it makes any sense in the context of your situation. All in the interest of science of course.

[Carandini]

You are so smart!  I took a look at the ports and see that there are now 3 with my printer's IP address.  The first one is Port 9100, while the next two are Port 515, and one of those is selected for "Copy 1" of my printer.  I don't know how that happened, but at least it makes a little more sense why I'm now able to print.  I still don't understand the message thread you originally pointed me to, but it's nice to know that there is something more than random chance that fixed my problem.