MBP randomly losing connectivity to network printer

This has been an ongoing issue for a few months - MBP running 10.8 (issue happened on 10.7 as well), the printer is an HP LaserJet configured directly by IP address in OS X. The MBP is connected to the network via wifi. I ensured the correct driver is installed. I've reinstalled the printer several times on the MBP.

More often than not, when trying to print it will fail and sit at "printing - connecting to printer" in the job queue but will never print. I can still ping the printer when this occurs. Sometimes rebooting helps, sometimes it will randomly start working again without a reboot.

PC's can print to it properly.

Any ideas? Thanks.

Hello and welcome,
If you've checked the printer out and it happened on 10.7 and 10.8 then I would focus on the wireless router and make sure all is well there.

It could be that you need to reset it, upgrade the firmware, move it to a better position, remove any metal objects that may be causing dropouts that sort of thing.

Even...you may have introduced more devices into your network so that they are all competing for the same bandwidth (usually 2.4gHz).