Networking and a HP Photosmart C5180

More a personal note, yet may be useful for others to know….

Today, our new printer, a HP Photosmart C5180, arrived. This printer combines printer, scanner and photocopier in a single unit, i. e. it is able to do any of these three tasks more or less. Well, good enough for us, is seems after some initial tests.

This printer can be connected to a router and hence scanning and printing is possible via the network. Nice, if you only have laptops and wireless lan. And here, the problems started….

Running the printer with a dynamic IP provided via DHCP from the router does not work reliable. Either the printer is never detected from the software installation process or is lost if the printer’s ip changes or the windows firewall blocks the address information send by the printer. It simply doesn’t work.

Workaround?

1) Assign a static IP to the printer

2) Print the network configuration of the printer via the corresponding menu option

3) Edit the /windows/system32/drivers/etc/hosts file and add the following line

192.18.x.x HPXX123

Here, replace the 192.18.x.x with the ip of the printer and HPXX123 with the printer name as shown on the configuration printout.

4) Then install the driver software. The basics are enough. The other applications are next to unusable or extremely bloated. 160 MB for a document viewer? Come on…

And in case you want to know, how to do this using dynamic ips, have a look at this german thread. (There is a translated version on the HP website somewhere)…. Mind boggling complex, no more comment…