DI-524UP Wireless Router, Print Server & Netgear DG834G

Well, recently picked up a D-Link DI-524UP router. It has four LAN ports , a WAN port for the DSL modem and a USB port for connecting a printer. It was only the USB I was interested.

I’m a big fan of WiFi and use it on my Notebook, Netbook, Desktop PC, PSP and my Nokia N95! And Netgear DG-834G with inbuilt ADSL modem and router combo suited me just fine. It was only when I had to lug the computers from one room to the room with the printer, that I sorely missed having it on WiFi.

And that’s where D-Link DI-524UP stepped in with its WiFi Print Server. Picked it up for Rs.3000 in Delhi. Okay, now, enough of chitchat and lets come to the point. Which is that installing this Print Server was one hell of  a pain in the ass.

First, the product Quick Istallation Guide (QIG) is one of the crappiest I’ve ever seen in my 12 years of computer shopping experience (and believe me, I’ve seen many shitty ones). For a start, the QIG is completely silent on how to use the Print Server. Somehow, the manufacturers seem to have assumed that a consumer would buy the router and use its USB connector it for storing USB Pen Drives or something!

Problems, problems. I spent one day just trying to figure out a way to turn DG834G into a pure modem and turn off its router.  Since the DI-524’s QIG was so strongly focused on how to setup a router (in fact, it only talks about installing the Router and remains silent on the Print Server part) I presumed that installing its router was a necessary pre-condition for using the Print Server.  Anyways, cutting a long story short, I just couldn’t get the two to work together.

Then, I thought there should be no reason why I shouldn’t be able to use the Print Server only, chucking the router part of DI-5354. Smart, eh! Only, I had no idea how to do it and the D-Link India web-site search simply denied the existence of this product itself (no such product exists!)

First, if you want the setup like me, i.e. a separate ADSL modem-router, than change the IP address of the DI-524. Devices typically go for 192.168.0.1. Just change it to 10.0.0.1. And remember, if you want your machine to connect to the Printe Server rather than the ADSL modem, than turn off the ADSL modem; after all the network card can connect only to one wireless network at a time. If you want to use DI-524 router also, follow the product QIG, the instructions for that are straight forward enough.

But that’s really the beginning; now comes installing the Print Server. After a lot of Forum scanning,  I finally found the method that worked. First, the instructions quoting from D-Link Au web-site, http://www.dlink.com.au/tech/default.asp?model=DI-524UP&TemplateId=21991.

(A PDF fiels containing the instructions and images are attached with this post).

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Step 1 Go to Start > Settings > Printers > Add New Printer
(WinXP – Start > Printers and Faxes > Add a Printer).

Step 2 Select Local Printer.

Step 3 Create a New Port and select Standard TCP/IP port.

Step 4 The printer name/IP address is the IP of the router (192.168.0.1). Leave the port name with the default name.

Step 5 You will get a message saying that additional port information required.

Step 6 Select Custom (WinXP – Select Custom > Settings).

Step 7 Set Protocol to LPR.

Step 8 For the LPR Settings, queue name is lp1 (or lp). It is case sensitive! (LP lower-case). Use “lp” for LPT port or lpUSB0 for USB port. DI-524UP uses lp1 and DI-624S uses lp1 and lp2. If you are using a different print server (e.g. DP-303) you need to enter the name of the port in your print server here. Log into your print server and check the name of the port, it may look like “ps-050b8f-p1”

Check the box to Enable LPR Byte Counting.

Step 9 Select OK > Finish.

Step 10 Continue with the Add Printer Wizard accepting the default values to finish loading the printer drivers.

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Let me clarify some steps above.  These settings are for Windows XP and I’don’t know how they’d reflect or translate on other OS. Check out the attached relevant PDF file for that. In step 4, use the changed IP Address (10.0.0.1, in case you had changed it as suggest in this post before) .

I tried this with my HP-1005 MFP. (DI-524UP Print Server does not support scanning; the one with scanner support was on offer for Rs.8000). For me, using the value of “lp” in LPR Settings gave an error of ‘Printer Busy or Error’; however, using “lp1” instead fixed the problem and now the printer is online 🙂

PDF Links:

Network_printing_Windows_Vista

Network_printing_Windows 2000

Network_printing_Windows95. 98. ME

Network_printing_MacOS

Network_printing_WindowsXP