Provide steps to connect HPLJ P1102w to AirPort router (MacOSX 10.5.8)

Question

Please provide deterministic set of steps for connecting HP LJ P1102w wirelessly to AirPort router (MacOSX 10.5.8).
I recently bought a HP LaserJet P1102w in the hopes that since it supports AirPrint and my OS, I should be able to quickly and easily connect it to my wireless network, which has been running without any hitches, except the occasional rebooting of the router.  I've tried everyhing, including reading the quick start guide and the on-CD manual that came with the printer (two things that as a convert from PCs to Macs several years back, I have learned shouldn't really even be necessary, when things just work out of the box.) 
I have gone through the standard install on the SW CD, gone through the steps to upgrade fhe firmware, and tried various combinations of the steps indicated in the conflicting suggestions I found in the quick start, CD user manual, and in the online support site that HP has set up in lieu of actual human support.  At one point, through some combination of (not all documented) steps that I can not reproduce, I managed to get to a web-based configueation page on the printer, and successfully provided my net SSID and password, and confirmed by having the printer produce it's configuration page that it did have the settings to connect to my wireless network.  However, the IP address it was reporting was still a standard "local" IP address (starting with 169.xx.xx.xx), rather than being on the correct subnet for my actual network (10.xx.xx.xx).  And I could no longer get to the printers web-based config page (no matter what IP I tried in my browser) to check/adjust settings.  
i found in another location the suggestion to go through the System Preferences to get to the Print Queue, and select Utiltiy --> HTMLConfig..., which I also tried tonight, but as soon as I click the HTMLConfig... button, the Utility simply closes and nothing else happens.
I'm on the verge of returning the printer if I can't get it configured correctly. As it is, I'm very displeased that I've had to spend this much time trying to get set up (and it's still not working).  I used to build computers from scratch back in the day-- but that was "for the fun" of trying to get all the pieces to work together, correct drivers installed, etc. -- but I thought we were far beyond that for end-user products that are intended to work out of the box.  And I'm surprised at the lack of quality / consistency in the documentation provided by HP.
Any help other users (or hopefully HP!) can provide would be appreciated, *particularly* it it's in the form of "reset to facory settings by pressing these buttons, and perform these steps to ensure a successful installation."
Thanks.

Answer 1

Carolyn Samit wrote:
HI Samuel,
Definitely try a different channel.
Airport Troubleshooting Guide
Carolyn
Hey Carolyn thank's for your reply!
The Airport Troubleshooting Guide is great. Unfortunately did not help in my case.
(I tried a lot of other things, too. Installing the combo update 10.5.8, resetting PRAM, deleting keychain entries, removing Aiport adapter in the list of network adaptors, removing known networks and so one. Nothing did a change!)
What did help indeed was to plug in the Mac by ethernet cable and configure the Airport Express base station to a different channel. Then it works like charm (again), as you suggested, too.
I tested with another (d-link) wlan (b/g) station and confirmed my first suspicion that it has something to do with the channel and not with the base station or some configuration.
Both, channel 12 and 13 are NOT working, but all others do fine!
This is a bug (introduced in 10.5.8 or maybe 10.5.7, I am not sure?). I repeat, this is a bug and unrelated to the wifi battery issues described by others. I guess I will file a feedback report.
As a work-around, switch to another channel. I am not sure what happens to people who have channel left to "automatic" and the base station changes to 12 or 13 by itself. (Is this technically possible?) I think they will get problems. Definetely.
For completeness, my specs:
Model Name: MacBook Pro 15"
Model Identifier: MacBookPro1,1
Processor Name: Intel Core Duo
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 2 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP11.0055.B08
SMC Version (system): 1.2f10
AirPort Card Information:
Wireless Card Type: AirPort Extreme (0x168C, 0x86)
Wireless Card Locale: Worldwide
Wireless Card Firmware Version: 1.4.16.2
Current Wireless Network: Apple Airport Express
Wireless Channel: 1