Old Printer

They have: 12 posts

Joined: Dec 2005

I was hoping to get help with this dilemma. My father has been running his 8 year old computer and has finally broken down and ordered a dell. He is in love with his old laser printer, but is not USB. How hard would it be to set up his old computer to serve as a print server? I think he has windows 2000 on it.

Also to note - He has a wireless router already set up and his new dell is a wireless notebook.

He has: 2 posts

Joined: Nov 2005

Make sure there are Win2K drivers for the printer.

Not hard, but unless you print a lot its a pain to have to turn on the PC to use the printer. I know from personal experience. Smiling

Greg K's picture

He has: 2,145 posts

Joined: Nov 2003

If nothing else you can find print servers (wireless ones too) for pretty cheep that work with paralell ports.

If you are already ordering from dell, see if they can add this to the order this one which is wireless:

D-LINK SYSTEMS - DP-311P 2.4 GHz Wireless Print Server
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?sku=A0132278&cs=19&c=us&l=en

or to save a little money, you can get a wired one:

Hawking - HPS1P - 10/100 Print Server 1 Parallel Print Port
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=195938&Sku=H300-2004&SRCCODE=PSCANDF&CMP=OTC-PSCANDF

my recomendation though, for future growth, get one with multiple ports for just a little more, then if he ads a new printer, he can use same setup:

D-Link DP-300U 10/100 Print Server 2 Parallel and 1 USB - Mfg Part No: DP300U
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=195938&Sku=H300-2004&SRCCODE=PSCANDF&CMP=OTC-PSCANDF

Being that is an old laser printer, Windows XP will most likely have the driver for it. However, there are some printers that you need a workaround for. (ie. I have a Canon 5100 wide format inkjet that is great, but doesn't have drivers for win 2k/xp, but did find a workaroudn for it.

-Greg

They have: 12 posts

Joined: Dec 2005

Thanks all for the replies.

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