Printer Hookup

[brantly04]

I print a lot at my work and most of the time it's black and white and I don't want to walk all the way to the main office to pick it up.


My boss gave me her HP laserjet 2100 that she never used.


It has the old school printer cable, no usb.

I want to try and hook it up without using the usb cable converter, is it possible?

I have a laptop with a docking station. The docking station has an spot for the old printer cable. I've tried using the universal HP driver and it still doesn't recognize there's something connected to the computer.


help!

[bigbearbear]

Most likely the universal HP driver didn't have provisions for parallel ports based printers. Try the specific driver:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DriverDownload.jsp?prodNameId=14922&locale=en_US&taskId=135&prodSeriesId=25469&prodTypeId=18972

Or, just convert the parallel port into a network port and you can put the printer on the network:

http://www.amazon.com/TRENDnet-1-Port-Parallel-Server-TE100-P1P/dp/B00007IFDR

The universal printer driver might still not pick up the network adapter so you might need to manually put in the IP address if you go this route.

[brantly04]

How would I find the network address for the printer?

[brantly04]

and i have windows 7 32 bit so it just wants you to install via the driver in add printer function. (it doesn't show up there either)

[brantly04]

Figured it out! I wasn't using the right port on the add a printer screen.

[stilly]

LoL@LPT1

[HappyCamper781]

Was gonna say... LPT 1 man...

[brantly04]

Yeah, it's an old schooler, but for black and white word documents it works great. Sounds like a jet taking off when it's done printing but w/e.

[stilly]

HEY WAIT A SEC!

I think I have a 2100 in the other room... Yeah I do... You can get yourself a print server and plug it into it via parallel port and then just send the print jobs to the ip address of the print server (you can assign your own) and it should work good. That is about the only way you are gonna update it unless it has a print server card slot on the side and you can get an hp-jet direct card in it.

[ibanezfoo]

How would I find the network address for the printer?

Hold the the big button on the top until the lights start flashing. Then let go and it will print a couple pages of info about your printer.

I have about 1000 (probably more) of these small hp, Brother, and Dell printers at work... I hate all of them equally.

[stilly]

the 2100 has no screen so it would be on the printout IF it was networkable. If it did not have a jet direct card installed then you would have to check the print server it was connected to.