wireless printinf problem...

I have a dell computer hooked up to a dsl modem which sends wireless internet to my imac. Connected to the dell computer is a dell photo all-in-one printer. I am not have good luck with wireless printing. I went into system prefs and it found the printer and everything, but when I go to print something no box pops up and nothing prints. I've heard you need certain drivers for some printers, but I haven't been able to find any drivers for a dell printer anywhere. Does anyone know what I should do?

Could this be a firewall issue? Most DSL modem/router boxes contain a firewall, and it may be blocking your dialogs? I know that this is a long shot, but perhaps you could try turning off the firewall on the modem/router and try again. If it works, you know you have found your culprit.

You present this as a wireless printing problem - does this mean that it works if you connect the iMac to the DSL modem/router directly via cable vs. wireless?

kman118 said:

I have a dell computer hooked up to a dsl modem which sends wireless internet to my imac. Connected to the dell computer is a dell photo all-in-one printer. I am not have good luck with wireless printing. I went into system prefs and it found the printer and everything, but when I go to print something no box pops up and nothing prints. I've heard you need certain drivers for some printers, but I haven't been able to find any drivers for a dell printer anywhere. Does anyone know what I should do?

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What exactly do you mean by "found the printer"?

If the printer is conected to the Dull then you will need to set the Dull up to be a print server, that sort of thing is gonna get complicated real quick.

How is the printer connected up, via USB? What OS are you running on the Dull, Xp, Win98, Linux?

Far too many variables here to really be of much help I'm afraid.

Amen-Moses

Ok, well I can't connect the two computers by a cable, ones upstairs and ones downstairs, and I don't have a choice to move the printer either.

What I meant by it found the printer is when I went into system prefs/ print and fax and went to add a printer, I clicked "More Printers..." and the dell computer showed up, I clicked that and it told me to put in a password, then the printer came up, "Dell Photo AIO Printer 955" so I clicked that and it showed up in the main printer configuration box.

I have the printer connected to the dell set to sharing over the server.

The printer is connected to the dell by a usb, and the dell is running xp.

I will try to turn off the firewall and see what happens.

Your issue is likely related to the driver that the Mac chose to use for your Dell AIO. In all likelihood, Mac OS chose to use a Generic Postscript driver and that's probably not going to work.

Dell doesn't provide driver support for Mac OS. That's not necessarily the end of the road for your Dell printer since it is very likely just a rebadged Lexmark. The trick is to figure out what Lexmark model shares the guts with your Dell. Once you figure that out, you can just go to Lexmark's site and download the appropriate driver.

That said, if the Lexmark driver is not "network aware" (i.e. it just assumes that you have the printer connected via USB, you'll need to find a generic Gimp-print driver that will work with it.

That raises the degree of difficulty in getting it to work to another order of magnitude.

I'll do a little research and let you know what I find out.

My advice is that if you need a network printer, buy a new one that has built-in network support and a Mac driver.

BTW, is the model number really 955? I can't seem to find any reference information on that particular machine.

Oh sorry, yeah it's actually 922, not 955...