Locally connected Printer shows as offline on Windows 7 network after initially working

Ok, have checked similar threads wihich got no successful answers.

I have a PC with Epson printer connect directly via USB. Print driver installed correctly.  Works fine. 

Windows 7 Ultimate (32 bit) no security other than windows firewall and microsoft security essentials.

Laptop connected wirelessly to PC.  On same network and homegroup, file and media sharing all working fine.

Laptop running Windows 7 Ultimate (32 bit) same security as PC.

When I add a network printer it finds printer on PC and correctly installs driver etc.  Printer appears in devices and will print the first couple of times.

However, by the next day the network printer shows up as "offline" in the print spooler on the laptop.  Documents simply stack up.

The PC does not go to sleep and is left on all of the time except for the monitor which is switched off.  Printer works fine on PC, indeed with docs stuck on the laptop I can still print directly from the PC - even this does not show the printer as online on the laptop.

Have checked that the printer spooler on laptop is running and set to automatic.

Epson unable/unwilling to help - have found a similar thread with no answer - anybody any guesses as to what to try?

Many thanks

Here is what you need to do.

Go into the configuration of your router and look at the DHCP settings for the router.

Your IP addresses will be 192.168.1,100 - 192.168.1.XXX where XXX is the ending address.<--For Linksys router

The third Number in the IP address could be 0 1 , 2, or 3 etc.  dependent on the make of Router. I will cal this number Y.  The entire addeess range is 192.168.Y.1 - 192.168.Y.254   You don't want to use 192.168.Y.1

or 192.168.Y.254  your router could be using one of these 2 addresses for it self.

We don't  care what the third number is because the the range your router is using is called the scope

of DHCP addresses your devices (computers)  get when connecting to your network.

So what you need to do is manually setup your computer to use a static address (Outside of this scope)  if you are sharing a printer off of that computer. 

 Here is why. 

Your computers address is changing from time to time and that makes you unable to print since the laptop is looking for the printer connected to your Home desktop computer.

Let's say that your computer gets the fisrt address in our example above.  192.169.Y.100

Your  printers driver sets up the printer like this when looking to print to it \\192.168.Y.100\epson_printer_name 

So you want to go to in Windows 7 Start -> Control Panel --> Networkand internet --> Change adapter settings -->

Double click on Local Area connection --> Double click on Internet Protocol Version 4  and you will notice that your desktop computer the one you are sharig the printer on has

 Obtain address automatically

selected for the address and the DNS.    So here is what you do   Change your home computer to the following:

IP address           192.168.Y.50

Subnet                  255.255.255.0

DefaultGateway  192.168.Y.1     or 192.168.Y.254   depends on your routers address.

Perferred DNS Server  192.168.Y.1

 You can check with your Laptop by going to the command prompt    and type in  C:\  ipconfig

You will also put the same address as default gateway in for the Preferred DNS Server.   Just the top entry.

Save and close and reboot and check to make sure you can get in the Internet.

Now when you reconfigure the Printer on your other computers  it will always be at the same address on you desktop computer.

Dr Bob

I have an HP wireless printer.  After getting frustrated and wasting time running up and down stairs, I simply uinstalled the printer and reinstalled it.  So with a few clicks, that solved the problem... although I have NO IDEA WHY.

The blog is somewhat old and maybe you have found a solution for the problem which I share. I stumbled across the following solution: in the list of connections for the offline printer I found a Standard TCP/IP port which I never entered but which seems to work: It comprises the same IP-adress owned by the printer but with a  _1 appended, i.e. 192.168.1.12_1. Using this port the printer duely performs after the sleep mode of the pc. I have no explanation but maybe some guru can explain this phenomenon.

Wolf57