Customer Reviews

D-Link DP-311U Wireless Print Server, 1-USB Port, 802.11b, 11Mbps

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

My network is two wireless XP laptops and a Linksys 802.11b router so I was a little worried about mixing networking brands - but it worked out fine. Virtually no slowdown compared to having the printer directly connected to the laptop and I print some pretty big files. Setup wasn't too bad (~15-20 min staring at the manual really confused, 5 min reading amazon.com reviews, ~20-30 min installation). Much like what Hafizullah said, it's better to config in steps: configure the printer in the wired configuration and then get it to work wirelessly. Since the manual is mostly useless, here's what I did:

1. Wire it up (connect the print server to the router with an ethernet cable and the printer to the print server by USB).
2. Turn on printer, power on the print server (after startup sequence of ~20 sec, ethernet light should be lit).
3. At this point open up a browser and go to "192.168.0.10" and the print server config utility should start.
4. Click on the "configuration" tab and set: password, connection mode (mine is infrastructure), ESS-ID (your network's name), wireless channel, WEP (# bits and password). It's important to type the WEP key in exactly with no spaces or dashes because the utility won't give any error message if the password is wrong. Click 'save'.
5. Click on the "Network" tab and change the IP address if you want. It has to be within the range of assignable IP addresses for your wireless network (e.g. my router assigns from 192.169.1.1 to 192.169.1.101, so I set the print server to 192.169.1.2). Make sure to set "manually assign" otherwise you won't know what address your printer is on! I think the workgroup has to be set, but I'm not sure (I set it to the name of the wireless network).. Click 'save'.
6. At this point you should be able to print a test page. Click on the "tools" tab and click to print a test page. If it prints, you're in business.
7. Now you can set up the printer drivers. The instructions are actually pretty good for this, so use them here. Once that's done, try printing something that isn't a test page to make sure the printer itself is set up OK.
8. Now to configure the wireless portion. Unplug the ethernet cable, and click the reset button (recessed in the back of the print server). Once it finishes booting, the "wireless" light should be on or blinking. If so then you should be done. Try printing something.. I didn't have everything correctly set up initially, so this step took a few minutes. I think everything necessary to set was covered in #4.

Good Luck!

My entire wireless network is composed of Linksys products, so naturally when I wanted to get a wirless print server I looked to Linksys. I went out and bought the linksys WPS11. It is a parallel port wireless print server. Got it up and running ok, but printing was really slow. Sometimes 1-2 minutes between pages on text documents. So then I went out and bought the PPS1UW print server. This is Linksys' USB version. Couldn't even get this thing going at all with my printer, which I thought was odd since my printer worked fine with the WPS11 and they have you install the same print server drivers.

After spending about 3 days troubleshooting, I went back to the store and found the DLink DP-311U. Got it home, plugged it in and had it talking to my Linksys WRT54G wireless router with 128 Bit WEP encryption in no time. This print server processes my print jobs at the same speed as when I had the printer plugged in directly to the pc. I was also impressed with the detail of documentation as opposed to the documentation of some other linksys products I had bought.

I definetly recommend this product if you are looking for a way to place your printer at a distance from your computer. Great Product.

I bought this DP-311U print server. I set it up according to the manual and i can print from different computers to the printer. However, a few hours later, it stopped working. I disconnect then reconnect everything, it started to work again. But a few hours later this same thing happened again. I called the tech people at D-link and started to explain the problem when the line was disconnected. I thought this must be an accident. I called again. After transfering to a different number and waited for about 10 minutes, i was just about to describe the problem again, the line was droped again. I checked my telephone lines, they were ok. D-link's tech support is just a waste of time. By the way, i have other similar products which work fine.

Mike

I REALLY like the small size of this unit. It fits great into my new home office setup where I don't have a lot of space near the printer, or an easy way to route a long USB cable.

It is true that the quick start guide is only for Windows XP. I was able to follow the instructions and get everything working on the first try. The only problems I had were with friggin' Windows, not the DP-311U.

Once I had it set up in Windows, I added the Linux connection to the DP-311u's LPR deamon via CUPS and it worked the first time.

I did not bother with the d-link admin program. I never inserted the CD into my CD drive.

Corrections to other postings: 1. This is definately wireless, you only need a 10BaseT wire when you first set it up. 2. There is a "Reset" button that must be pressed with a pin.

OK, first of all, the documentation for this product is really poor. If you were to follow the instructions step-by-step I'm pretty sure you would never get it working properly since they leave a lot of stuff out. However, if you are somewhat techwise (were you able to install the wireless network by yourself?) you should be able to get it running. Once you get it going though you never have to touch it again.

I've got 2 laptops (one Win XP and one Win 2000) connected to a Netgear wireless network that can now print to our new Epson Stylus C84 printer. The performance is great and its a convenience to be able to place your printer anywhere you want and not have to attach it to a computer. I was able to get it to use 128 bit WEP and MAC authentication on our network.

Pros:
good performance
convenience
configurable web interface

Cons:
horrible documenation
Only USB 1.x support (would have liked to have seen USB 2.0 support)

All in all, though, I am very pleased with this product. If you have an all wireless network with only laptops this is a great product to consider.

As others have said, the documentation is wretched. It has very clear screenshots of a Windows XP installation, but as has been noted by other reviewers, much is left out.

I was attempting to get the DP-311U to talk to an Actiontec DSL router supplied to my client by Qwest, but at first I could not even get the computer itself to bring up the management screen for the DP-311U through the Ethernet interface. The LAN link light stayed dark. On impulse, i tried a *crossover cable*, and the LAN light lit up and I was able to launch the management screen in a browser window. The straight-through Ethernet cable supplied by Qwest with the DSL router could not be made to work, even though it worked just fine in configuring the router.

The second wrinkle for me was configuring WEP. The DP-311U supports all the newer security protocols, including 256-bit encryption, but I used 128-bit WEP because I just needed to get this installation working and will fine-tune it later. Different units require the key to be entered differently; some, such as the Actiontec router supplied by Qwest, like dashes between the hex digits (as I recall). The DP-311U, will not accept a dashed key and will not tell you it's rejecting it; the key won't "take" and there is no error message. You only find this out when you start going through your settings one at a time and discover that WEP isn't active. The DP-311U requires that the encryption key be entered with no dashes or spaces. It would have been REAL NICE if either the documentation or the browser interface had given an example.

Other than crappy documentation, it seems to be an OK unit. The power transformer is skinny and probably won't keep you from using another plug right next to it on your power strip. it's light-weight enough that it's easily mounted (they did supply screws and mollys) on a sheetrock wall. And, has been noted, USB 1.1 is probably fast enough for most printing tasks.

After 3 hours of banging my head against a wall I finally called Tech Support. They finally figured out that this is not compatible with multi-function computers. You can learn that on their support website but no-where in the standard documentation that comes with it.

I don't have enough room under my desk to put my printers and wanted to shove one off in a closet. Anyways, I sent back a competing product when after multiple attempts to configure it (including trawling through badly written manuals and tech support websites), it still wouldn't work. So I didn't expect much here. However, this works perfectly. The configuration utility actually worked; the network was recognized and except for a couple of seconds delay between sending the print job and when it starts printing, there are no problems. Was up and running in about ten minutes.

I bought the product 2 weeks before and I have a thought this will work with all printers but not. D Link technical support is very bad I called at least 10 times to find my printer is compatible or not.

User manual is not complete so configuration is very difficult. Changing the IP Address manually and re assigning the new IP Address is very difficult. And it cause problem for other wireless divices (Mouse,Keyboard,Wireless web camera and External wireless hard disk). Because of this product I spend almost 8 hrs to solve other wireless network issues.

If you have enough time then it will entertain you.

My home networking is pure D-Link, router, adpaters, print servers, and even my USB bluetooth adapter. I already have a DP311U connected to a laser. 2 months ago, I bought another DP311U for an inkjet printer. I got the problem on how to differenciate the 2 same print servers. After some research, it just requires you to set the 2nd server to a different address. The original is 192.168.0.10. You then set the 2nd (or the 1st) to a differnt one, like 192.168.0.20 and everything will be just fine.

Seemed D-Link is dumping DP311U now because they have a 802.11g server (DP-G310) and sometimes you could find a < $60 DP311U. But believe me, you won't need a 11g for print server. 11b is fast enough. If you think printing is too slow, it's the problem of printer, not the PS.

D-Link's quality is good. My router (DI-624) never died for the past 1.5 years. I would recommend their products.