HP LaserJet Pro MFP M227fdw Wired Connection Stopped Working

[squirrel_70]

I purchased this printer about a month ago as the display model from an office supply store that is closing.

I set it up with the wired ethernet connection and had zero issues. Recently it was "offline" and the IP address was wrong so I reconfigured it as a 'static' IP 192.168.1.111.

It still would not connect so I unplugged the ethernet cable and setup the WiFi connection...and it works?  If I plug the network cable back in - it doesn't work...

I tested the network cable by plugging a laptop into that cable and found no problems.  I reset the printer and re-setup the network wired and wireless - it only works wireless?

I printed about 10 pages max, I find it hard to believe that it is already broken?

[John_Getzke]

It sounds like there is an IP conflict with your home network, printer and the PC connecting to it.  IP Addresses must be unique or they will result in communication failures.  You need to confirm that the static IP address you setup, 192.168.1.111 is outside of the DHCP range of your home router.  Otherwise the home router may deal out 192.168.1.111 to another device and cause a problem.

Reset the printer back to the defaults, then reconfigure a static IP on the Ethernet cable again.  If there is a problem then power down the printer, reboot the network and then try to ping the IP address of the printer again.  If something responds then you know your home router is giving out that IP and you need to pick a better one for the printer.

Reset HP Laserjet M227:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe0Ar1TyBHY

[squirrel_70]

I did the printer reset - thanks for the video 🙂 and rebooted the router

the router DHCP range is .25 to .75

non DHCP clients = server at .100, wireless bridge at .252

configure the IP address of the printer to .111

the router client table does not show the printer .111

ping = 100% packet loss

unplug the ethernet cable and configure wireless...

the printer shows up in the router client table at .111

ping = 0% packet loss

[John_Getzke]

Thanks for all the great info.

Does the Ethernet Jack light up when you plug in the Ethernet Cable?  If not then the jack on the back of the printer might be bad.  That is not something you can easily replace.  If the Ethernet cable and configuration you are using work perfectly fine on another device then you have isolated the printer as the problem.

The NVRAM reset would have undone any configuration changes to accidentally disable Ethernet Cable, but I dont think you can do that even if you wanted to on this model.  

About the only other thing you can try to do is to Reset the printer again and let it connect to DHCP.  That would tell us if something with your manual reconfiguration of the Static IP address is off.

[squirrel_70]

the printer's network lights are on, solid green and flickering amber, the light on the switch also turns on

did a reset with the network cable plugged in, it can't "see" the network and defaults to 169.254.211.34

[squirrel_70]

setting up wireless, it gets assigned 192.168.1.54 via DHCP

[John_Getzke · Accepted solution]

Ah, the 169.254.x.x IP Address means it found the router, but the router rejected it for some reason.  The green and amber lights also confirm there is a hardware connection between the router and the printer.

Hmmmm so if wired DHCP is not working we need to fix that problem first.  Do you have any other firewalls, blocks or other features on your router which could be rejecting its connection?  Perhaps a reset of the home router would be a good next step to rule out any configuration issues on the network side.  Or if you have an old router lying around you could boot it up and try to connect the printer to that device, just to see if it is still something on the printer that is causing the problem or not.

I believe you already mentioned the Ethernet cable is good.  If there were a disconnection or a pinch in one of the data wires then the same cable would have problems with other devices too.  That would point us back at something being wrong on the printers Ethernet NIC again. 

[John_Getzke]

If the printer can DHCP connect over wireless then the problem is further isolated to the Ethernet Cable adapter on the printer.  Perhaps one of the pins in the Ethernet Jack is bent or bad.  DHCP should work the same way from your routers point of view between wired and wireless.

[squirrel_70]

found the problem...

I was digging around looking for my ethernet cable tester and came across an old 4-port switch.

I replaced the existing 5-port switch with the 4-port and guess what.

[John_Getzke]

Thanks for the confirmation.  Sounds like there was a bad switch in between the printer and the router.  

Please review the responses in this thread and mark one of them as the Solution.  This kind of detailed troubleshooting may help someone out in the future.