HP 6980 - won't properly connect "securely" via wireless - only "unsecurely"

Attempted to set up a HP6980 for a neighbour, expecting it to be easy -
connected to a Toshiba laptop via a Draytek 2800G wireless router

But the wireless printing only seems to work when the printer has *no*
encryption set. If the printer has no encryption set, it prints fine.

Setting up using the "manual" option - via Ethernet cable connecting
router to printer - all seems fine... until the Ethernet cable is
removed. At that point, the printer seems unable to find the router
wirelessly - the printer's network indicator light blinks ( indicating
"no connection" ).

It seems that the problem only occurs if the printer is being set to use
encryption. The connection between laptop and router is WEP. If the
printer is set to use WEP it can't find the router, but if the printer
is set to use no encryption it works fine.

( Filtering by MAC address has been set in the router, and that seems to
be fine. )


Any suggestions or comments at this point ? :|

On Sep 13, 4:24 am, "-------...@example.com" <-------...@example.com>
wrote:
> Attempted to set up a HP6980 for a neighbour, expecting it to be easy -
> connected to a Toshiba laptop via a Draytek 2800G wireless router
>
> But the wireless printing only seems to work when the printer has *no*
> encryption set. If the printer has no encryption set, it prints fine.
>
> Setting up using the "manual" option - via Ethernet cable connecting
> router to printer - all seems fine... until the Ethernet cable is
> removed. At that point, the printer seems unable to find the router
> wirelessly - the printer's network indicator light blinks ( indicating
> "no connection" ).
>
> It seems that the problem only occurs if the printer is being set to use
> encryption. The connection between laptop and router is WEP. If the
> printer is set to use WEP it can't find the router, but if the printer
> is set to use no encryption it works fine.
>
> ( Filtering by MAC address has been set in the router, and that seems to
> be fine. )
>
> Any suggestions or comments at this point ? :|

I've not actually done this, but have whiled away an hour or so at
work perusing the PDF manual for an HP C6180 wifi printer I ordered
yesterday that hasn't arrived yet.
I don't think that the HPs will "failover" from wired to wireless
network printing - i.e. by unplugging the ethernet - you have to
toggle one or the other. The manual suggests this needs to be done at
the point of installing the driver, and may even need a reinstall of
the printer driver to change - HP say it definitely does when
switching between USB and network, and suggest that this also applies
to switching between wired ethernet and wireless - during the install
you have to tell the driver where on the network the printer is, and
I'm not sure it'll just accept a static IP address, which would be
best all round.

It also tells you to unplug the ethernet cable before attempting a
wifi connection.

Is your printer being given an IP address by the router? Is it
pingable and on the network?
If you're entering your WEP key in ASCII, try the hex equivalent. I
only use hex keys on WEP now due to a variety of similar problems in
the past...Your router should translate and give you the hex value for
the key.
Can the printer find the SSID of your network? On the C6180 there's a
wifi networking diagnostic via the front panel.

There's also a corporate driver for a lot of these printers that have
less ancilliary tat and might prove more effective for network setup -
I can't imagine the network broadcast method of setup that the
standard CD uses would scale up for big networks so it might offer
more control of the networking side of things...

Ric