Trouble connecting two printers on a Ethernet Switch-Solved

[davidh202]

 Thought I'd post this here also...
Original thread on Printers.. http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=63152.msg508131#msg508131

Got a 5 port ethernet switch, configured my 7900 on a TCP/IP port, and it worked ok  through Qimage until I rebooted and tried to print from Qimage Ult a day later
    One time the status monitor shows communication with the printer and shows all status indicators(ink levels etc.)  but the printer wont print.  Qimage shows the printer ready and on the correct port ...   I reboot the 7900 and it will print through Qimage but the status monitor doesn't show or it shows a comm error.I cannot get the Status monitor to comm with the printer through the system tray utility either. Reboot the computer with the printer on and both the status monitor shows, and the printer prints fine from QImage.
    I've unistalled and reinstalled the driver several times ,made sure the port is configured correctly and bidirectional turned on.
Reboot again and one of the three scenerios starts yet again.
I've made sure I do not have duplicate driver files in the Epson folder.
Been reading many similar reports of comm problems with the Epson Status Monitor
     I am on a Win 7 Pro machine, not on a  network ,just using the switch to split the port on the computer and believe I should not have to use the Epson Network Configuration Utility to simply connect two printers to one computer as i would using  USB ?
I have not even tried to hook up the 9890 until I get the 7900 working correctly

Any Ideas anyone?
Thanks,
David

[Farmer]

In simple terms, you need to set a fixed IP address for your PC and for each of your printers.  Sure, you can do it by DHCP and automatic allocation, but only if your switch supports that and really it's better in this situation to make them static.

They all need to be in the same range, so for example:

PC 192.168.0.10

Printer 1 192.168.0.20

Printer 2 192.168.0.30

Then you need to set the ports in the driver to point to the correct printer (you need a driver showing for both printers)

There's really nothing similar between a network connection and a USB connection, unfortunately, it's not just a matter of plugging them in.

If your PC is already connecting to the internet, you may have problems if you change its IP address.  In that case, you need to check what range it is set to (presumably by your router or modem through DHCP) and then allocate addresses in the range to the printers.

Note, you can either use the Epsonnet utilities or you can set it via the control panel.

If this sort of thing is something you've never done before, you may want to come back and ask for a detailed step through :-)