Customer Reviews

D-Link DPR-1260 RangeBooster G Multifunction Print Server

5 star:		(51)
4 star:		(47)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(55)

 

 

Okay. It isn't perfect. Installation isn't as easy as it should be. Instructions aren't as good as they should be. Some printers work with it, and apparently some don't.

But go look at the ratings on all the other print servers. You'll see the same problems. I tried at least three others, and couldn't get any of them to work. I've been able to successfully get this print server to work with an Epson R300 (USB 1.1), a Canon MP830 all-in-one(USB 2, print only), and even a Lexmark Optra T610 laser printer(parallel, with a USB-to-parallel adapter from Belkin).

Printer manufacturers have gone nuts with bi-directional information going back and forth between the printer and the computer. The result: really pretty printer drivers that give you loads of information and options, but depend on the printer being physically connected to the computer. But when you want to easily share that printer with a bunch of other people (especially a bunch of people with laptops), it's much more difficult. Either everybody has to swap cables, or you buy a print server--and give up the pretty driver screens that pop up to tell you to buy more ink.

The D-Link DPR-1260 is the only one I could find that actually listed compatible printers on the box. They say that they tested with 100 different printers. I believe it. Their competitors don't seem to have done nearly as much testing.

If you aren't comfortable setting up a wireless router on your own, or if you needed help installing your printer the first time, don't buy this. If you can figure out what the d-link is doing by setting ports on your printers to print to an IP address, give it a try.

If the market had some better entries, I probably wouldn't rate this with 5 stars. But it appears to me to be the cream of the crop.

Update (12/2007): We've had it for about a year, and we've had trouble a number of times. It repeatedly loses settings. If I could reduce the number of stars, I'd give it two or three.

Pros:

Combination wireless 4 port USB print server, scanner interface, and single port bridge. So far, the bridge's single ethernet port has worked flawlessly. Printing, once I got past the configuration nightmare, works great using a Kyocera FS-1010 laser printer and a HP-6110 Office Jet MFP from either Win XP or Linux/CUPS.

Supports scanning for some HP and Epson products, but not all. Check the D-Link web site and users' web reviews to see if yours is supported. Ditto for printers.

Works with some "problem" printers that other USB print servers either can't handle at all, or handle poorly. This unit replaced a D-Link DP-311U that had to be reset after every print job on my FS-1010. A SMC 2621W-U wireless print server would not work at all with that particular printer.

Supports WPA and WPA2 encryption. Anything less is really not secure. This has allowed us to retire a separate WEP encrypted wireless system that we used just for printers.

Works with most OS's, including Linux. Once it is set up, it doesn't know or care what operating system you are running, at least for printing.

Cons:

Absolutely the worst setup possible. Out of the box it only works with DHCP. No default fixed IP whatsoever, even after a timeout. Wireless encryption must be off. SSID must be "D-Link" This thing's setup requires that your wireless network conforms to its requirements, instead of the other way around. It is absurd.

Scanning is browser based, not HP or Epson native, and it doesn't work properly with all browsers. Linux is worse than Windows. IE and Firefox worked OK for me on Windows, Opera did not. Nothing was 100% on Linux. Scanning resolution was less than the scanner was capable of, even at the highest setting. White tone scans to a light blue color.

Completely inadequate documentation. Most of the set up info in this review is either not mentioned, or is buried in useless garbage. Nothing at all on browser javascript requirements for scanning.

User interface inadequate. There is no signal level indicator. You can't tell how well the unit is receiving, other than the wireless LED id lit. The printer wizard doesn't always provide an error message when it is unable to function. It just returns and sits there silently. The pages require a manual refresh to update. It does not work properly with all browsers.

No telnet interface. [ If you don't understand that, you won't care; it's a command line thing. :-) ]

Other Points Typical Of Wireless Print Servers, Neither Pro Nor Con:

It can't work with so called winprinters, also known as GDI printers, or host based printers. These cheapies lack internal smarts, and rely on Windows for ALL their processing. That's not D-Link's fault.

Ink level reporting and fax functions of multi function devices aren't supported, as D-Link states.

The USB ports are for printers only. They can not handle other USB devices.

A printer driver has to be installed on every PC on the network for EACH printer connected to the print server, unless there is no need for a particular PC to print to a particular printer. A printer instance (print server connected printer) also has to be created in the Printers and Faxes folder, or its equivalent, on each PC. This can be a lot of work and seems to be frequently misunderstood.

The Basics Of How To Set Up A DPR-1260:

This is the stuff that is either missing or not readily apparent in the documentation.

1. Your network MUST have a DHCP server running. If you don't know what this means, you almost certainly have one running already.

2. Either set your wireless to unencrypted and broadcast an SSID of "D-Link" (caps matter) OR connect an ethernet cable between your DPR-1260 and your router/hub/switch. I recommend the latter. That way, it's less likely that you will end up with your print server connected to your neighbor's unsecure-default-settings D-Link based wireless network, which is entirely possible.

3. If you DID NOT use the cable method, the wireless LED on the unit MUST be on solid to proceed. That indicates that the DPR-1260 has associated with your (you hope) wireless network and can get an IP via DHCP. If not, recheck steps 1 and 2.

4. Follow the Install Guide's procedure for connecting to the print server, which might work, OR log into whatever box has the DHCP server and note which IP was served to the DPR-1260. Paste the IP into a browser to bring up the print server's user interface, which will work.

If you have the print server cabled to the network, you should be able leave it there for the rest of the setup (except firmware updates) if you like. Otherwise, connect a PC to the print server's ethernet port.

5. I strongly recommend that you assign a fixed IP to the print server, so that you can always find it with a known IP address that can be bookmarked. Naturally, I also recommend you use WPA encryption or better on your network, and change its SSID to something other than D-Link.

6. If the printer wizard doesn't work properly, reduce the security settings on IE. Other browsers don't seem to work here, BTW. The print server will download a windows executable, which will run on your PC and set up a wireless printer instance. It works best if you install a standard driver first, so you may have to temporarily move the printer to the machine first, or vice versa. Linux users use CUPS, instead. It is much, much easier.

Final Thoughts:

The javascript that drives the user interface shows a lot of errors on browsers that can report that sort of thing. It appears that D-Link has written the scripts for Internet Explorer instead of using standards based code. They need to fix this.

They also need to fix the ugly light blue/gray that passes for white in the scans.

My unit came with firmware v1.20. I updated to v1.21. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the update did not reset the unit to the factory defaults. Hopefully, further update releases will improve scanning and the UI. This is badly needed.

D-Link should absolutely provide a documented default fixed IP after DHCP timeout in the next software release

If you have a D-Link based wireless network running no security and all the original default settings, the DPR-1260 will probably work right out of the box, and you will think it is wonderful and give it a five star rating. ;-)

On the other hand, if the last paragraph doesn't describe you, then you have some degree of work ahead of you. How much depends on your networking knowledge, and to some degree, how well we users have written our reviews, which is a good indicator of how poor the documentation is.

Two stars for the functionality it does have. Nothing for setup, documentation, or user interface.

Our wireless is almost 100% D-Link. Nevertheless, they have convinced me to look elsewhere for wireless products in the future. No wireless device should require that the network be made insecure in order to install it, even temporarily, and nothing should be so poorly documented.

I have an HP Photosmart 2410xi AIO. Both printing and scanning work fine for me. I tried several print servers in the same price range unsuccessfully before I found this one, which I think is great.

Based on the reviews, some out there are not so happy. I agree that the documentation for the DPR 1260 leaves much to be desired, so I thought I'd share some helpful tips:


NETWORK SETUP

I did not have problems with network setup like some others have reported. Maybe I'm just lucky?

1) I think the trick is to start by just using the cable. Use it to connect the DPR 1260 to your *router* (NOT to your PC). Once you've upgraded firmware and got the printer set up, *then* you can switch to wireless.

2) Some firmware versions for the server assign a manual IP address to the server and assume your router is using the 192.168.1.0 subnet (with mask 255.255.255.0). If you're having problems, browse to your router's web page to check (usually the router is at IP address 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1 -- just type the IP addr into your browser's address bar).

3) IMPORTANT: If the server is using DHCP, you'll want to assign the print server a fixed IP address. You can do this from your router's web page using the print server MAC address, or by assigning a manual IP address to the server from the server's web page. Have someone help you if you don't know how.

If you don't do this, your server's IP address could get reassigned and your printer will stop working. If this *does* happen to you, you'll need to reinstall the printer on your PC (using the server's wizard -- see below) so that it points to the correct IP address again. This isn't the server's fault; it's just the way printer network port monitors work in Windows XP/Vista.


PRINTER SETUP

1) To use the printer from the DPR 1260, you MUST install the printer on each PC that you want to print from, EVEN if you already had the printer working directly connected to your computer. The reason is that you must create a new 'print queue' on your PC with a port monitor that points to the print server via port 9100 or LPR.

2) Your best bet for installing the printer for the DPR 1260 is to use the setup wizard found under the 'Setup' tab in the server's web page. The problem with using the Add Printer wizard in the Windows XP/Vista control panel is that some printer manufacturers choose not to display the printer in the list of available printers, even if the printer driver has already been 'staged' (i.e. installed previously on your computer).

3) IMPORTANT: In step 3 of the server's Setup Wizard, if you are asked to insert the driver CD, this means insert your PRINTER driver CD, and NOT the CD that came with the print server. If you can't find the CD for your printer, just download the driver from the printer manufacturer's support page, unzip it if necessary, and then point the wizard's browser to the folder with the driver (it's looking for the .inf file in the folder).

Note that the DPR 1260 wizard downloads a setup exe to your Windows XP/Vista PC which automatically installs the printer for you (i.e. adds a new print queue). The exe is what sets the DPR 1260 setup apart from other print servers -- most others I've seen expect you to use the Windows Add Printer wizard which often does not work.


SCANNING

1) Scanning only works for HP and Epson models. My HP 2410xi worked fine for scanning, even though it wasn't in DLink's list of supported printers.

2) To use the network scan feature, you must use the server's software accessed via your internet browser. Just browse to the server's web page that you used for setup and click on the 'Scan' tab (IE or Firefox both worked fine). The software that came with your printer will not work for scanning over the network.

3) I haven't notice any odd discoloration with the scans like someone mentioned earlier. The scans look just as good as when using the HP 'bloatware' scan software.


MISC

If the printer stops working for some reason, make sure you didn't plug it into a different USB port than it was in when you first installed it.

Problems like this, when printing from a PC seems to stop working, can often be solved by reinstalling the printer using the server's setup wizard.

BTW I am a computer engineer and do this kind of thing for a living. I know computers are frustrating, so hope my comments will help to ease your pain somewhat :-)

I have tried to install this print server once on Win2000 and twice on Vista and always sending it back in discussed. I have recently acquired a wireless router, and thought I would try it again. I finally got it to work with these printers HP5610, HP5440 (same as I had before)on Vista and a Linksys WRT54G router.

Here is how I did it. First you need to know how to set security on a home network (I used WPA2). Second you need a wireless router (not just a wireless modem or PC with a wireless card). Third you need to download the latest firmware from d-link's website. Fourth you need to have the printer drivers already installed on your computer.

Everything can be done without any software from the CD or dlink's website. Next you need to have the DPR1260 plugged into your PC via the Ethernet cable. Now go into your network on your computer. Double click the DPR1260 - your web browser will popup (IE7 in this case). This is all you need to setup everything.

Now go into the setup tab on the top right, then look on the left and go to the firmware tab and install the firmware update you downloaded previously. And now go to the wireless settings tab and set up your routers security information (don't forget to use the ESSID drop down menu and click the nework name you are using) to link your wireless router (note: disable the super G unless your whole network has this capability - it's not a big deal). Note: if a password is asked anywhere during the setup just leave it blank and hit the next button (you can make a password under the administration button).

After you are done with all these steps click again on the setup tab click next. During this step your printer(s) should be hooked up in the USB slots. Click the radio button for your printer and press next. You will need to repeat this step for each printer you are installing on your computer. Be patient with the print server updating.

Unplug the Ethernet and everything should be good. If the printer shows up in the Control Panel (on your computer) under the printer icon (the DPR1260 should be associated with the printer) and there is no service, but everything looks good delete the icon and redo the step with the setup next radio button etc.

All your wireless computers should be able to read the network with the DPR1260 if you set up your security correctly. You will need to double click the DPR1260 and install each printer with the setup tab in the browser utility on each computer in the network.
I give it five stars for performance, and the setup I give it three stars.

After reading mixed reviews on this print server, I went ahead and got it. It's hard to find a USB print server with 4 USB ports, which is why I chose this one.

Contrary to alot of previous reviews, this thing was easy to install and works flawlessly for me with Windows XP and Windows Vista 32-bit, even with 2 printers that are not on the supported products list.

I have this print server connected to a Linksys wireless router, a Canon Pixma IP3000 printer, a Brother Intellifax 1860C fax machine/printer, and 2 networked PCs. One PC runs Windows XP Media Center 2005 and the other runs Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit.

Installation was a snap on both PC's. If your networking settings on your PC's are setup to find UPnP devices, you are good to go. Both PC's found the print server instantly. Logged into the print server control panel via web browser and installed both printers without a hitch.

Some tips for folks having trouble getting this installed correctly:

First off, install the printers on each machine before you setup the print server. This helps the print server setup process easily find the drivers for each printer.

Secondly, make sure that, if your printers support firmware updates, to have the latest firmware installed.

Thirdly, before you install printers on your print server, update the firmware for the print server. The latest firmware update contains support for Windows Vista and some bug fixes.

And last but not least, make sure your PC's networking services are running and setup correctly. Turn on Network auto-discovery and UPnP support in Windows services. This will allow your PC to find the print server on it's own and eliminate alot of headaches for you. If security is a concern, you can always shut down these services after installation.

Although some basic networking knowledge is a great help when installing any network device, I believe that even newbies can install this device if they follow the above steps before trying to setup printers.

Go ahead and grab this baby if you two or more printers networked. It works fine if you take the time to check your network settings and install everything properly.

At home, I have the most basic windows wireless network possible. Nothing fancy -- I do that all at work. I just want stuff to work so want the easy route. So I got an HP LaserJet 1018 -- a home USB model, similar to some we have at our office, and this wireless print server.

It was not terribly bad to set up, assuming you know a lot about networks, wireless, and so on. The "wizard" is quite lame, and the diagnostic support is non-existant (no errors, or logs, or anything to help tell what's working or not). I was able to get it working fine with my wireless network without too much pain, but the last (presumably simple) step of plugging in the printer to the USB port and printing resulted in one of two states: either the print job just stuck in the print queue, or (after scanning the support site and trying a suggestion for a related printer) would just print into nowhere. No errors, no messages, no nothing.

I tried with another printer and had exactly the same result. I sent detailed info to the support email address, and got a single "try this and report back" message in response, two days later (not even an attempt to solve, just to diagnose). It was far easier to return this bad product to Amazon than to do further battle.

I suggest you look elsewhere and save yourself more than a few hours.

I just installed this D-Link wireless print server and it installed into Vista perfectly. I just followed the quick start guide, and didn't even put in the cd. I found it right away on my network, and as soon as I clicked on it, the utility to access it opened up. I have 2 printers connected, it found both immediately, installed the drivers, and I was printing! For years I have struggled with Linksys wireless print server wps54gu2 and it was horrible to try to get working with each new notebook I got--extremely difficult to set up and does NOT work with Vista. I highly recommend this D-Link print server to everyone, and am now looking into getting a new D-link router to attach my external hard drive. You will be very happy with this D-Link wireless print server - I am!

It took about 10 hours of work to make it function with a MacBook running OS X 10.4.6 and an Epson CX 6400, and I needed a windows XP PC to set it up, but yes it works. For Mac installation, the trick is that (using the windows xp pc connected with wire - not wirelessly) you need to change the static IP of the server to a DHCP given by your router and then you have to go trial an error with your browser to find whatever address it was assigned. On the Mac, set it up as an LPD printer. Also, make sure you type the queue name exactly as it is shown on the status screen and God help you if you don't have one of the printers listed on the packaging.

I purchased this unit with some trepidation as many of the wireless print-server reviews, including for the D-Link DPR-1260, indicated many strange problems and printer compatibility issues. Still, this unit had the best reviews, and before I bought it, I verified that my old HP Deskjet 5740 color printer was supported. D-Link's web site has full lists of supported equipment, something many vendors didn't provide.

When I received the box, everything was inside: the server, the antenna, the wall wart, quick-install guide, miscellaneous mounting attachments, and CD. The quick-install guide supported Windows 2000 and Windows XP. I used the XP instructions with my Vista laptop without issue. I connected the print server to the laptop via the provided Ethernet cable, configured it to connect to my wireless-g network (WPA protected), and rebooted the print server. It connected to the network without issue. I did not use the CD at all (the instructions didn't prompt me to, either).

Then I disconnected my DPR-1260 from my computer and let it function solely on the wireless. I then connected my printer. The printer was detected immediately. I followed the instructions to install the printer on my Vista laptop through the DPR-1260's web interface. The "installation" downloads an EXE file that sets up the raw socket port and creates the printer (no add-printer wizard to go through). Once set up, I printed a test page and it worked. I did not have a single problem with my printer.

I gave the product 4 stars (I'd really like to give 4.5) because I also have a Mac and Linux machine and neither the instructions nor the website give any information for either of those platforms. The D-Link provides both raw-socket print capabilities and LPR/LPD queues. I was able to quickly Google and find the LPD setup procedure for a Mac online and use those instructions for both the Mac and Linux machines. D-Link should provide some basic instructions for the Mac or some generic LPR/LPD instructions. It would take maybe half a page of their quick-install guide. It's not entirely obvious how to do it.

Not only did the unit work out of the box, but it's also very simple and clean looking. It can lie flat as pictured. It comes with a snap-on stand so it can stand vertically (how I have it setup). It also comes with screws and small drywall anchors for mounting the unit on a wall or under a desk. The unit is about the size of your hand, so it's unobtrusive, and it's black and silver finish doesn't stand out in a modern office.

All in all, this was a great purchase.

I finally chose this D-Link model after reading reviews for over an hour. I felt it had the most favorable reviews, even with some bad installations. I have an Epson CX7800 printer/scanner that I have connected to the D-Link server, and I can print fine (see below) and also scan through it as well.
I think the first advice I can give, is to connect the D-Link server to your home network hub by the *included* cat-5 network cable. Then when you go browse your home network through your hub or access point, it shows right up as listed in the instruction manual. For example, if you have a 2wire system like me, open up internet explorer, and go to http://gateway.2wire.net/ From this screen, look at the bottom and click on "view the home network." Then next to the Dlink name, click on the "view device details" link. This will give you the "192.1.1.101" address that will get you connected to the D-Link server setup/configuration pages, in internet explorer type your number like this: "http://192.1.1.101", hit enter, and it will give you the tabs to access your wireless network name and password key.
My second advice is: I was having problems printing from my wireless notebook to the wireless print server, the printer would print 3/4 of a full page, the abort, and try again, and again, and again, until I cancelled the print job. I was almost ready to return the print server after I had some suggestions from D-Link's help pages, but no luck. At first, I thought it was a Windows Vista problem, BUT I figured out I could plug the notebook into the network by cat-5 cable, and it printed fine. My work around was to go into the Windows "Control Panel", and go to the "Printers and Faxes". Then right-click on the D-link printer icon, and choose properties. Click on the "Advanced" tab, and in the middle, choose "Print directly to the printer" and then click "OK" at the bottom. This has fixed my problem, and everyone loves using the printer wirelessly throughout the house now!