I just bought a new router and I'm thinking of returning it and getting something else because it has no way to reserve IP addresses for specific devices. In this case, I'm talking about my two printers more than anything, although everything I've just read suggests this router sucks anyway (Belkin PlayMax) and my own tests show a worse signal than my old Netgear WNR-3500 (basically I get sick of having to reset it 1-2x a month as connected wireless devices suddenly stop working for no apparent reason).
Anyway, it seems to me that I should be able to setup my computers to access the printers by their hostname instead of the specific assigned IP address and this should then avoid that particular problem regardless of the router. The problem is that I cannot seem to get either my Mac or Windows computer to work with the Host/Node Name I gave the printers. The names I gave show up in the router's connected device list with the hostnames that I gave them, but when I select that name in the add printer preference panel instead of a specific IP address (e.g. MYLASER instead of 192.168.2.13), it simply does not work. OSX cannot find/connect to the printer. If I use the IP address, it does work, but when the router reassigns it a different address at some point (reset, whatever), it will then stop working since the direct address is no longer valid.
My question is how do I get OSX to use a host/node name instead of a potentially dynamic IP address? My Netgear router let me reserve addresses so I simply reserved two addresses for the two printers and fed that address to the printer preference section and there would never be an issue since the printers would always have the same address. But IF I kept this router, that would not be possible. I would need to be able to use the hostname.
Similarly, if I access my Brother DL-5250DN laser printer's IP address from a web browser, I get a settings/preference page in return, but it does not respond if I put the hostname in the browser (which I thought the router would then respond as if it were the current assigned IP address) so something isn't right there either with this setup. How would I access the page by its hostname instead or is there even a way to do that?
Anyway, it seems to me that I should be able to setup my computers to access the printers by their hostname instead of the specific assigned IP address and this should then avoid that particular problem regardless of the router. The problem is that I cannot seem to get either my Mac or Windows computer to work with the Host/Node Name I gave the printers. The names I gave show up in the router's connected device list with the hostnames that I gave them, but when I select that name in the add printer preference panel instead of a specific IP address (e.g. MYLASER instead of 192.168.2.13), it simply does not work. OSX cannot find/connect to the printer. If I use the IP address, it does work, but when the router reassigns it a different address at some point (reset, whatever), it will then stop working since the direct address is no longer valid.
My question is how do I get OSX to use a host/node name instead of a potentially dynamic IP address? My Netgear router let me reserve addresses so I simply reserved two addresses for the two printers and fed that address to the printer preference section and there would never be an issue since the printers would always have the same address. But IF I kept this router, that would not be possible. I would need to be able to use the hostname.
Similarly, if I access my Brother DL-5250DN laser printer's IP address from a web browser, I get a settings/preference page in return, but it does not respond if I put the hostname in the browser (which I thought the router would then respond as if it were the current assigned IP address) so something isn't right there either with this setup. How would I access the page by its hostname instead or is there even a way to do that?