BT HomeHub3 compatibility issues with HP printers?

Question

Our HP Photosmart printer is connected to our wireless network, but despite the printer itself saying it has got a good signal and is connected to the correct home network, none of the computers in the house (2 Mac laptops on Mountain Lion and a PC running Windows 7) seem to be able to find the printer more than, on average, once every couple of weeks or so.  The rest of the time it says 'Printer is offline' or something to that effect.  Sometimes it prints a couple of pages and then it suddenly 'goes offline' or cannot be found - while the printer itself still says it is connected.  Occasionally when we try to print something nothing happens for several hours, no matter what I try to get the thing to connect, and then the next morning we find that it must have printed at some point overnight.
After endless re-installing, changing settings and in total about 3 full working days on the phone to the HP helpdesk, a HP engineer said that there is a known comatibility issue between HP printers and BT HomeHubs.  
I was about to order a new printer as I really need it to work when I need to use it; not just when the printer has had enough of playing hide and seek, but looking at customer reviews of different wireless printer brands they all seem to have similar issues.
Is there anything I can do that might get the thing to work all or at least most of the time?

Answer 1

Here are the GENERAL steps on how to add a wireless printer on your wireless network.
As you have said that it is already connected and visible to the network it is a case of checking the settings below then if ok go to “adding printer to your networked computer” section
The wireless printer must have a static (i.e., manual) IP address assigned to it from your network IP address range. It cannot be DHCP enabled, otherwise every time DHCP assigns a new address, your printer port will stop working.
How to set a manual IP address on your printer:
When the printer is connected to the network the first time, the router will assign an IP address to it. To get the IP address that the printer was assigned, find the printer on your network and right click on it. It will bring up a properties box. The IP address for the printer will be found somewhere in there.
Using an Internet browser, type the IP address of the printer into the address line of the browser and press enter. It should bring up a printer configuration window.
Since each printer is different, I can't give you the exact steps, HOWEVER, here's what you are looking for:
Find a Network - TCP/IP configuration menu. Somewhere in that menu, it will give you the choice of setting a manual or static IP address versus a DHCP (Dynamic Host Control Protocol) assigned address.
You want to manually set the IP address to the address given on the configuration page. This would normally be 192.168.1.xx. The subnet mask will normally be 255.255.255.0 and the gateway will normally be the IP of the router, usually 192.168.1.254
Once the IP address is assigned permanently to the printer as a static address, you are now ready to add the printer to each computer on your network. Add the Printer to Your Networked Computers