My network printer is possessed!

This is the fourth time this has happened in the short time I have had the printer. Maybe a couple of months. I have an Okidata C3400 color printer set up as my network printer and every once in a while it will just change it's IP address on me. The first time it happened I was convinced the printer was defective, so I took it back to the store and got a replacement. I guess TWO of them could be broken in the same way, but is my luck REALLY that bad?

Anyway, there is no warning, the printer just stops accepting documents. So I have to press a reset button on the internal print server in the printer, get it to print out the network settings, make note of the NEW IP address, go into the printer's property page and change the IP address there. THEN it will work. Until next time.

The OKI is a really nice printer, but dang it all... I really don't need this sort of crap when I am trying to print out an invoice so I can get to bed and get that shipment to the airport bright and early......

I guess (hope!) there is a logical reason why this is happening.......

There is a very good reason why it's happening... Your printer is set to receive it's IP dynamically via DHCP from your network (probably your router).

According to the Okidata website, if you have the windows network setup utility installed on a computer, you can do this from windows:

This utility allows easy print server configuration, quick discovery, and IP address assignment.

1. Select Optional Utilities from the menu bar.

2. Click Install Network Card Setup.

3. Follow the on-screen instructions.

Note: If the Ethernet Address information does not appear, click Search.

What you want to do is assign a static IP.

First, you want to find out what your DHCP scope is. This can usually be found in your Router setup. For example: if your router is 192.168.2.1, you probably have a DHCP scope of 192.168.1.100-150 (or something like that). The scope is just the range of IPs that the router will use when it assigns IP addresses dynamically. The reason it is important to know your scope is you want to assign your printer a static IP that is outside of that scope (in the above example, 192.168.1.2-99 or 151 - 254 would be acceptable)

Your network setup for your printer will want to know the following info for static IP assignment:
IP address: This is what you want your IP to be... again, outside the DHCP scope.
Subnet mask: The easiest thing to do is do an ipconfig on one of your computers on the same network. It is probably 255.255.255.0, but since I don't know how your network is setup, I can't say so for sure.
Default Gateway: This is your router (In most small networks).

Once you get all that in there, your IP shouldn't change again, baring some freak memory reset or something.

Please note... in my above example, I miss-typed. I typed "if your router is 192.168.2.1". I meant to type 192.168.1.1. Since I used that as my promary example, probably best that I correct my typo, huh? lol

Thanks for the help. However, when I try to change that setting, the software is asking me for an admin password. Danged if I can remember putting in a password when I installed the printer/software.... And interestingly enough, the IP on the printer had changed again this morning.

I have a call in to Okidata about this. This would be a real pain in the butt in a real world work environment with many users.

Thanks.

I had the same problem with logging in to the printer to either set the network settings or changed the password. I found the answer on the driver cd. I installed the user guide, this automattically installed a network user guide also. You can view this from the okidata catagory from the progam menu. In order to log in you must use --- login: root password: is last six of your MAC address of the printer. Do not include dashes and it is case sensitive. If any letters are present you must use upper case. Well I hope this helps.

Good Luck,
Daniel Mc.
Blade Computers

So far it seems to be holding up OK. If I remember correctly, what I did was to set the printer to have a fixed IP address and not have it dynamically allocated. Hopefully that will nail down that printer to one IP address.

I guess there is a good reason why Okidata set it up to have a dynamically allocated address like that and yet the driver could not automatically change along with it, but darn if I can think of it. I've also got a HP inkjet printer that is on the wireless netword and it has not budged at all from when I originally installed it.