Officejet J6450 will NOT connect to laptop wirelessly - PLEASE HELP...

Question

Good afternoon,
I just spent almost two hours on the phone with a woman from the HP Tech Support team that I could barely understand (not exaggerating - would be wonderful to bring back customer service to the US - god knows we need some more jobs here!!).  She had me do a number of things, none of which solved my problem - needless to say, it was a very frustrating two hours and now I am very frustrated! 
My issue is that my laptop will not recognize the wireless Officejet J6450.  I have Comcast broadband cable internet, a Linksys wireless router, an HP desktop, and a Dell laptop (laptop is from employer - I work from home).  I loaded all of the software on my desktop first (connected via USB) and everything worked perfectly.  I used the Network Setup Wizard on the printer and connected to my Linksys wireless router with no issue whatsoever (full signal strength).  I printed a wireless netwok report - no problems were found - all diagnostic tests were a success.  The ethernet adapter wireless network connection IP address on my laptop is 192.168.1.102 and the IP address of the printer is 192.168.1.103.  So then I proceeded to load the software to my laptop for wireless connection - thinking all along how easy getting everything set up has been.  I then loaded the software to the laptop and I got to the part where it asks what type of connection I want to set up.  I chose wireless and it asked me to temporarily plug the laptop to the printer via USB cable.  I did so and it began searching for my wireless network.  I selected my wireless network and it began searching for my printer.  This is were I hit the brick wall - it could not find my printer.  I tried again - chose my network, tried to find the printer - no such luck.
I then did a Google search and checked these boards regarding alternative solutions.  I tried installing through Windows printers (BTW - laptop is running XP SP2).  Selected Local Printer, unchecked the automatically select box, chose standard TCP/IP, etc. - that didn't work either.
I consider myself fairly PC savvy and I am perplexed by this - just doesn't make any sense why the laptop won't detect the wireless printer. 
I would greatly appreciate any guidance regarding my connectivity issue as I do NOT want to call HP Tech Support back.
One other thing, the Tech Support lady told me to reset the printer by turning it off and then having me press the pound button and the number 6 before turning it back on.  Not sure why she had me do this, but it reset the ink cartridges and alignment and now the printer no longer reports how much ink is left.  Any way to fix that?
Lastly, out of curiosity, why does HP recommend not leaving the wireless enabled on the printer when not using it?  Doesn't make any sense to have to turn off wireless everytime after printing and then turn it back on when needing to print again.
Sorry for this long post - hopefully this is enough information for you to help me out.
Thanks in advance!
Jeremy

Answer 1

Hi Jeremy,
First, I have no idea why we are recommending turning off the printer's radio when you are not using it.  The only thing I can image is that if you leave the radio on and in its default configuration (SSID = hpsetup, no security, Ad-Hoc), then you are susceptible to neighbors or war-drivers using your printer.
Next, you have an interesting problem.  You've done everything I would have tried (check connectivity by browsing the printer's internal web page, turn off the firewall, try to manually add the printer).
I know you've disabled the firewall.  I might recommend uninstalling the firewall temporarily, then installing the SW again to see if that works.  Also, you might check to see that you don't have another firewall accidentally enabled (maybe the Windows firewall?).
Finally -- is there anything unusual about your wireless-router configuration?  Have you set any port-forwarding or other advanced settings?  BTW -- what model wireless-router are you running?
And of course there's a rather painful step to try that usually works:  reinstall the OS on your laptop and then install the printer SW (I'm somewhat embarrassed to suggest this but it does seem to work).
Message Edited by Wi-Fi-Guy on 02-20-2009 09:12 PM
Regards / Jim B / Wireless Enthusiasts
( While I'm an embedded wireless systems engineer at work, on this forum I do not represent my former employer, Hewlett-Packard, or my current employer, Microsoft )
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