Network issue.

My old LaserJet 4 has been slowly falling to bits for a while, and finally, the power supply blew. HP have said I /might/ be able to find a refurbished one somewhere. Enough, I bought a new Color LaserJet Pro M254nw, their spelling of colour. I installed the drivers on my two machines under my desk, and connected the printer to my router on my desk. all seems fine, I can print to it from either of my machines.
This afternoon, I installed the software on my wifes laptop. This is normally connected wirelessly, to the house router on the ground floor of the house. The HP connection tool cannot find the printer. Is there something I need to do here to get the laptop to see the printer?

You said "router" twice. That's always suspicious to me. Do you actually have two routers? And if you do, have you set everything up so that they share the same network?

I expect, you actually are just using one route as an access point or perhaps that you are using one router as a switch.

In order to help, we kind of need to know more about your setup.

One more question though, can the laptop "see" your desktop?

The house 'net connection is simply a jack point on the wall in the living room. This is connected to a Technicolor four port router which has a wireless transceiver built in, which my wifes laptop uses for its connection. One of its four ports is connected to a modem device which serves as an extender via the household wiring. The other end of the extender pair is connected to the Linksys router on my desk, which my two computers and the printer are wire connected too. Both "router" devices describe themselves as routers.

I don't know what her machine can see, I don't use it. What does she need to do to see my desktop?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fossaw

The other end of the extender pair is connected to the Linksys router on my desk, which my two computers and the printer are wire connected too.

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Is the cable from the powerline adapter connected to the "Internet"/"WLAN" port on that second router, or is it connected to one of the "LAN" ports? If it is the former, then it is likely that you have two networks in your home: one managed by the first router and the other by the second; if it is the latter, then the second router is probably functioning as a switch for the network managed by the first router.

The cable from power line modem is connected to the input to the Linksys, not one of the four ports. So the idea might be a non-starter then. In the past, she mailed me things if she wanted them printed, worked okay, I just figured with the printer on "the network", it might be more convenient for her to print directly.

Cheers.

<edit - spelling correction>

It's not that hard to configure that second router to be a switch. If it is somewhat new home user router, it might even have a dedicated configuration setting.

The Linksys must be 15 years old. I have had multiple machines under my desk for at least that long, and they shared a 'net connection. Don't worry about it, we can continue to work the way we always have done.

That's on you if you want to continue that way, but the linksys can be configured as a dumb switch. You may just need to jump through few hoops first.

Plug it in cat5 direct if possible and see what happens.