How do you use your printer connected by wifi?

HP printer help and Macbooks and Dell and WiFi?

• I have an HP Officejet 7410xi All-in-one. We have it connected to our wireless network and can print wireless from all but one computer (not the issue). The issue is that I have a terrible wifi connection in my bedroom. I currently have a router that broadcasts two signals; a standard 2.4GHZ that every computer, cell phones, and the printer can use and a 5GHZ that only my laptop can use for some reason. The 2.4GHZ signal is using a 64-bit WEP while the 5GHZ signal is using WPA2-PSK AES. Anyways, I tried to find a solution to my bad wifi connectivity and found that when I changed the 2.4 signal to WPA of any kind, my wifi speeds increased greatly. However, only my phone and laptop can use WPA while the printer and other laptop cannot for some reason. SO! Is there anyway I can increase my signals, get better wifi connectivity on all devices and still be able to print wirelessly? All devices have bluetooth, but I don't believe the printer does. Also, no matter where the router goes, I get bad wifi on my phone everywhere and bad wifi on my laptop in my room. The only way I got an increase was changing to WPA. Computers: Macbook - can run the 5GHz signal WEP/WPA, prints wirelessly Mac Mini - uses Ethernet, prints wirelessly Dell Inspiron - can only run 2.4 WEP, cannot print wirelessly (needs drivers) HP Officejet 7410xi - can only run 2.4 WEP WIFI speed is 10-20MBPS with ~40ms ping. Need an answer because my wi-fi keeps dropping at the most unfortunate times.

• Answer:

  Either connect the printer and Dell via Ethernet for now or turn them off. Are they a bit old? The fact that they support only WEP makes me wonder if they're 802.11b devices -- that would explain why you see a slowdown when they're online. Otherwise, the 2.4 GHz signal is broadcasting 802.11g, which is apparently the highest-bandwidth wireless option most of your devices can use. The 5 GHz signal is 802.11n, which has much higher bandwidth than 802.11g. It has a new feature that allows you to double the bandwidth of your n channel, so you should check your router's setup software or browser interface for this option. Keep all your 802.11n signals at 5 GHz if you see an option to change this. iStumbler (http://www.istumbler.net/ ) is a useful tool for checking to see what other wireless networks are running nearby and adjusting the channels you use accordingly. This can improve your connection. If all this fails, you can look at adding another wireless router to act as an extender, or adding a more directional antenna. If you choose the former approach, be sure it's compatible with the one you have already. If the latter, there are prefab and do-it-yourself options you can find on the web. WEP is useless against a halfway serious hacker and shouldn't be used. Have you looked for updates for the printer and Dell to see if you can run them with WPA? If not, is there a really good reason why their connections have to be wireless? That forces everything else to use WEP. Oh, and Bluetooth lacks the range you need by a long shot. --------------- 8/31 update: If the Dell's only 8 months old and can't run 802.11n and WPA I'll be surprised.Get those drivers. Try putting one or both n channels in the 2.4 GHz range. Maybe it will reach farther. If the software fixes I suggested don't help, get a 2nd router or antenna. 10-20 MB/s is poor for n, especially if you channel double.