The Trouble with Trolls…I Mean Printers

We at DormNet are here to serve you, the student.  Our tasks range from helping you reset your Pipeline password to troubleshooting your computer problems.  One other service DormNet provides is helping you connect your printer to the Harding network.  This might be important to you if you have a wireless printer and are having trouble getting your documents to print.

The trouble with printers is that there are hundreds of models and each one is different.  Often times the troubleshooting guide is hundreds of pages long and filled with information you really don’t care about (similar to this introduction).  That’s why I wanted to write up a continuation of my previous post to help you diagnose your printer troubles.  Here I’ll detail things to try in addition to some useful links.

Wireless Printing Troubleshooting Guide

1. Ask yourself if you really need your printer to function wirelessly.If you can get by with using your serial cable, then you might as well save yourself the time and effort and go old school.
2. Try connecting your computer’s network to your printer’s SSID.You’ll find your printer’s SSDI where you would normally connect to your dorm’s internet connection.  There might be a password that came with your printer, but if you don’t know this password you’ll need to find this via the internet manual.
3. Try removing your printer from your printers and devices and reinstall the printer.This step is fairly straightforward, but it differs between Macs and PCs.  You’ll want to check the user manual for correct installation, but it shouldn’t be too difficult.
4. Check to make sure the drivers are updated for your printer.This step is very important and should probably come earlier on, but the previous steps never hurt because they don’t take very long to do.  You will want to find your printer’s website and select the model of your printer before downloading the associated software and drivers.

These are the first four things I would try if I were you.  Otherwise you’ll probably need to do more in-depth troubleshooting, which could take a while.  Just take a deep breath and use the control-F key to find things quickly in the user’s guide.