Karl’s Asylum ... for the terminally deranged

NEVER, EVER buy this.

It’s a small inoffensive network print server used to connect USB printers to your home or corporate LAN. Right up until you plug the thing in.

It looks like it’s working, oh yes. We had it linked to a HP Laserjet Colour 3550, running off a Win2003 print server. All seemed fine. I could ping the USB server, I could get to the web manager, the web manager could see the printer, the printer was online and happy.

Windows XP test pages were fine. Most other jobs printed fine “on screen”..the jobs processed, got queued, sent fine, and produced the “Document Print Complete” bubble notification. However, if you were sat at the printer, nothing happened. Not even a “Data” light. Just continual “Ready”, and the printer idling.

This got very tedious, very fast. We then tried it on another printer. No go. We tried Netgear support - Indian, and terrible. One 30 minute slow and painful call before hanging up in disgust after being told to update the firmware..which was impossible as there was none to update to! Called back, and got a different person..who eventually talked us through several long winded and unnecessary methods to install the printer and server under Windows.

Really, they gave the impression of not knowing their products, not knowing their (naff) website, and not being in any way capable of offering a solution if it’s not on their script. It took us..well over an hour to get a returns number out of them, and there was a lot of sarcasm and frayed temper involved.

Do NOT buy this awful unit. Please. It’ll hurt if you do.

Look at their page!

Print Server Troubleshooting

* Using an operating system or application software newer than your printer or print server sometimes resolves problems. It may difficult for you to upgrade, however that may be the only way to resolve a problem.
* Equally, an operating system that is a year or two older than your printer or print server is likely to cause problems or to limit the usable printer features.

Print Jobs are Too Large for the Print Server Buffer

The Print Server Buffer is only 64K, so large print jobs are nearly always not executed correctly or at all. Do not use the Firstgear setup program to install the printer port. Instead, follow the instructions in the document above for adding the port. This will not always work, but it will help the buffer to execute larger print jobs than it would if the printer had been installed with the Print Server Setup program.

Print Jobs are Slow or Print is Garbled

Don’t use the First-gear setup program. Instead proceed to the ports program for the printer (now, be sure that the printer is already installed by way of the LPT port on the computer) and change the port of the printer to \device_namep1.

HP Printers Will Not Install Using NETGEAR’s First-Gear Program

Don’t use the First-Gear setup program. Instead, install the printer to the computer’s LPT port. Then, connect the printer to the parallel port on the print server. Finally, go to the printer’s ports program and change the printer port to \device_namep.

So, you shouldn’t use their included setup programs if you want it to work, you shouldn’t print more than 64k docs (That killed me! What a STUPID thing to put on a site), and you might need to upgrade or downgrade your OS as an ultimate solution.

Comforting? Not really. Crap. Shite. Awful. Laughable. Take your pick. Then call tech support, and lose the will to live altogether..bear in mind that all your time on hold to India is national rate..