PB Surfs Web Wirelessly, But Admin Util Can't "see" Airport Express - Huh?

Question

Hi All --
I have a friend (no really a friend, not me, I swear ;-)) with the set-up described below and a seemingly impossible problem. He's asked for my help, and so I'm asking for yours, because frankly the situation just has me stumped. Here goes:
Set-Up & Other Relevant Facts
• DSL connection comes out of the phone jack and goes to a Westell model 6100 modem.
• From there, a short Ethernet cable goes to a Linksys 5-Port Workgroup Switch.
• Two Ethernet cables exit the Linksys Switch: one goes to a PC, and one goes to an Airport Express (AX).
• From the AX, a USB cable goes to a printer (a Brother 1440 laser printer).
• The AX is only about 10 feet from his PowerBook G4 15-inch and he gets a full (four-bar) signal on Airport menulet at the top of the screen.
• When he first set-up his system, the G4 and the Airport did set up the Brother printer (using the Airport Setup Assistant), and the Brother is listed as a printer on the G4's printer window or such.
• Both the G4 and the PC access the web fine via this setup (the G4 wirelessly). In System Preferences > Network, the Airport Network is listed, and it says "Airport is connected to the network Apple Network 6c6c1. You are connected to the Internet via Airport."
Problems
• When the Airport Admin Utility is opened, no Airport Express appears at all, even when "rescan" is repeatedly clicked.
How can this be? How can the PowerBook be connecting wirelessly to the Web through the Airport Express, but the Airport Express no be "seen" by the Airport Admin utility?
• In addition, although web surfing is possible for both PowerBook and PC, neither computer is able to successfully print to the Brother 1440. When he tried printing from the PC, he got the following error messages:
[Status for LPT1]
Result=(02)The printer on this port is not responding.
Status Line=BUSY:H,ACK:H,PE:H,SLCT:H,FALT:H,SLIN:L,HBSY:H,INIT:H,STB:H
Later, it seemed that printing from either computer would start and then stall, flashing a variety of different signals about spooling or "printer busy" and the like, all of which appeared to indicate things just weren't working right..
Anyway, the initial questions we're dealing with are the ones in bold above. The printer issues are probably are related and they can be addressed secondarily.
Any and all help with this will be greatly appreciated. Thanks everyone.
-- JDee
Please excuse this duplicate post, but I posted this this morning in the AIrport Express forum at about 8 a.m. and have thus far received no replies at all. In fact, it's only been viewed a total of nine times -- and half of those are me. Very sad, and my friend is growing fairly desperate and is now convinced that only a complete reset and fresh start will fix his problem......

Answer 1

Hi JDee,
Well, it's the old 'friend of mine' gag, eh. Seriously though, it seems there have been numerous post over in the Aiport forums regarding this issue. I guess the first thing your friend can try is following these instructions to reset the AE. One of the other things discussed was the firmware version for AE. Some users have reported that version 6.1.1 works better than 6.2. One user reported being able to use the other button in AE admin utility, then entering the assigned IP address and password to gain access. One user resolved his issue by enabling the setting Distrubute IP addresses in the AE. It should be noted he also reset up his network at that point as well. Now as far as the printer goes, below are some instructions from iFelix for the Windows side which may be of some help.
Printing from Windows to AE
Problem finding Printer Driver on Windows
For the Mac side apparently there are issues with that model printer. Here's a link of compatible printers that iFelix put together. You'll see the notation next to the Brother 1440. Hope that helps a little. Sorry I couldn't be of more assistance.
Jrsy