New Airport Extreme & Brother HL-2040

[Taurus99sg]

I have bought the new airport extreme base station (AEBS) (802.11a/b/g/n dual band). I have been trying unsuccessfully to connect the printer Brother HL-2040 to the USB port of the AEBS. Does anyone has any idea how it could be done?

There are some forums that say it is not compatible while one or 2 said they have managed to do it but not on the dual band AEBS.

I have no problem connecting to the iMac directly. Before owning the new AEBS, it was connected to an Airport Express without any problem.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

 

[skorpien]

Are you able to see it in the printers tab of AirPort Utility?

 

[Taurus99sg]

No, I am not able to see the printer under the printer tab. It shows as "none"

 

[skorpien]

Short of power cycling the Extreme and the printer, I don't know what else to suggest. It seems that Apple may have removed compatibility inadvertently in the new revision of the Extreme. I'd suggest a firmware update when Apple releases one. Also, you might want to email Apple to see if they have any suggestions.

In the meantime, you could use a workaround. If you still have your old Express, you can connect it to your Extreme's LAN port, set it up in bridge mode (disabling the wireless network if you want, or creating a third one) and connect your printer to the Express's USB port. Not sure if it will work, but it's worth a shot.

Also, have you updated the printer's firmware? On Brother's site, you can download a firmware upgrade utility, but it seems you need to have a Windows OS to be able to run it. Visit the following site, select Downloads, then Firmware and your OS.