Setting Static IP Address?

[Arthuritus]

My daughter is at University and is Autistsic. The company that provides wifi is ASk4. She has advanced settings to protect people being able to print on her printer.

She bought the printer, one week ago.

She came home to us for the weekend and we set her laptop, tablet and mobile up to print wirelessly, succesfully.

When I took her back, we could print wirelessly with her tablet and mobile, but not from her laptop.

I have worked with Ask4 techies to try and solve the issue. To date, we have not achieved it.

So our last idea is to set up a static IP address.

Can you please provide me with the step by step instructions on how to achieve that please, bearing in mind, that I have to relay this to my daughter by phone, which isn't easy, due to her Autism.

She is using a Toshiba Satelite Pro WKH15 i3 laptop with windows 8.1

We have done a ping from the laptop to the printer and that is fine. However, when she tries to print a word document or pdf, it doesnt get printed.

Many thanks

[sabretooth04]

A static IP is not your problem.  And you never want to set up a static IP that you don't have control over as you could crash the Universities network.  They will not allow it.

The problem most likely is that you can't connect wirelessly the printer to the schools network because it is asking more authentication questions that the printer can't answer. 

Your tablet and mobile device most likely are using the printer Wireless Direct feature to print.  Your computer can use it too if you want.  It's just that you can't be on the schools WiFi network AND print at the same time.  It's one or the other, but not both.   You will have to verify this of course.

Read here on why you can't connect your wireless printer to a network requesting additional security and information (username and password).

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/LaserJet-Printing/Why-you-can-t-connect-a-wireless-printer-to-a-network...

[Arthuritus]

Thanks for the info Sabertooth. I understand what you are saying.

However, the wireless connection to each flat is controlled by an outside company called http://ask4.com/  As I understand it, they operate seperately to the Universities network.

For £25 you can upgrade to Ask4Pro, which allows you to set up a printer wireless setup, that nobody else can see or print to.

So on that basis , and I do see where you are coming from, are your comments still applicable?

As an addition, I will check on Monday with the tech support at the University about what you said. I have already spoken to them today and they didn't mention anything about what you are saying. Which is why I am sure that Ask4 are totally independant to the University.

[sabretooth04]

If she has Ethernet connector in the room this will work for you.

Connect wireless printer anywhere, convert from wired, bypass failed radio, add WPA2 security.

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Printer-Networking-and-Wireless/Connect-your-wireless-printer-when-away...

Looks like that company is just running the Internet service for the University.     You just need to ask them if their log on is Enterprise Authentication or not.   If yes, your printer will never connect wireless unless you set up the above "private LAN" in her room.  However, the room needs to have an Ethernet connection to connect the travel router or another router of your choice. 

The reason for this is that Wireless routers that you have on your own do not have Enterprise Authentication either so they can't connect.  However, with an Ethernet cable it will to your own router and just pass the signal through.  Now YOUR router handles the WiFi signal within the room just like at home.

[Arthuritus]

Thats very interesting and thank you very much for your information.

I will ask them about what you are saying.

I have a spare Netgear N600 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Adsl2+ Modem Router

That should do the trick.

I will get in touch with Ask 4 tomorrow and see what they have to say.

I will feed back on that, to you. So I will leave this thread open for the moment.

I am in the UK and it has gone past midnight.

Where are you, in the world, Sabretooth?. That way I will have a good idea what time difference, we have.

Many thanks.

[sabretooth04]

Here in Atlanta watching the clouds of Hurricane Matthew swirl by.

Your router will work.  Just have to plug the room LAN cable into one of the LAN ports I think, instead of the WAN port. 

[Arthuritus]

Thanks again. I hope you are safe. Very bad hurricane. Glad we don't get them in the UK 🙂

Anyway. I am off to bed and hopefully, I will be able to report back tomorrow about waht Ask 4 have to say.

Cheers

[Arthuritus]

I have checked with Ask 4. They are totally independant to the University Network.

They handle wifi connection for only the flats, that the students live in.

There is no Ethernet connection. It is totally wifi.

They say, that paying for the Ask 4 Pro set up, allows you to privately have wifi to the printer for all devices enabled, on that account.

We are at the point now, where we know the Laptop and the Printer are communicating.

However, we think the Laptop still has the router settings from when I set the printer up at my home. We think that what is happening, is that the 2 are talking with each other, but when my daughter tries to print, it defaults to the original setup for my router at my home, and that is why it isn't printing documents.

Funny thing is, I have been saying that to them, ever since the problem started.

So I am going to get my daughter to alter the settings on her laptop and then try and print. I will be doing that under guidance of ASK 4. That is when she gets up 🙂

I will keep you informed.

[sabretooth04]

OK, WiFi only.   But we still need to know if they use Enterprise Authentication.

You can answer this yourself.   If the computer connects to the WiFi  SSID with just a WPA2 password, and then you open a browser and you can surf the web immediately without any other authentication, they are not using Enterprise.    It's just like your home network at home, connect to your SSID with password and just go.

But remember in my articles, you never want to connect a printer to a public network as other will find it and print nice color reams of paper to it. 

[Arthuritus]

Understand what you are saying.

When I get to talk again with Ask 4, I will make sure that noby other than my daughter can print.

Originally, my daughter was on ageneral wifi with Ask 4 and the printing port was blocked, because as they said "It's open to all your flatmates etc".

That is why she was offered the Ask 4 pro setup, which is supposed to be private just for my daughter.