Hawking Technology HWPS1UG Wireless-G USB Print Server

Average customer rating: 2.5

prints garbage or blank pages
It works!
Not all printers supported
my unit worked, but required patience and a bit of know-how
Unit Works But Install Software is Weak

Hawking Technology HWPS1UG Wireless-G USB Print Server

Manufacturer: Hawking Technology
Product Group: CE
Binding: Electronics
ASIN: B0001R03XG

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54 Mbps

Print Servers

54 Mbps

Print Servers

Product Description

The Hawking HWPS1UG Wireless USB Print Server is a powerful and convenient tool to connect your USB printers to your existing wireless 802.11b or 802.11g wireless network. Through its enhanced functionality, the HWPS1UG can support a USB printer on either a wired or wireless 802, 11b or 802, 11g network. The Hawking HWPS1UG combined with the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) lets you easily connect to any printer and print documents by specifying the print server's IP address. With IPP technology, printing over a WAN or the Internet becomes much easier. You can send a print job to a printer in another country just as easily as sending a print job to your home or office printer. IPP eliminates the need for fax communications between offices. Simply print an original document through the HWPS1UGa�s IPP capabilities and send it from one office to another. The print quality from IPP printing is equal to that of a document printed from your local office. With the HWPS1UG, your printer become a fully functional networked print station.

Customer Reviews:

prints garbage or blank pages.......2007-04-30

I purchased this pint server for an onsite office that is totally wireless (wireless desktops - wasn't my decision for them to be wireless, but that's beside the point).

In any case, installation wasn't difficult. However, the office has called me on two separate occasions to tell me their printer is now printing garbled code or blank pages. It might print a couple of good pages followed by bad pages. It's not a driver issue as they are using the same driver they used when their printer was hooked up to one of their desktops.

I called tech support which has been outsourced to India by the way, and they were not of much help. Told me to reboot the computer and the print server.

I'm going to call again and ask for level 2 support. It's possible that this print server is not compatible with their printer..not sure.

I'm giving this 2 stars only because it was easy to set up. But that's it. Piece of garbage.

It works!.......2007-03-12

I bought another wireless print server and it was the darnedest thing. It wouldn't work for me. The Hawking was much easier set up and less expensive then the rest of them. I haven't used the it wireless, yet, but it works just fine hooked up to a router. I would recommend this for anyone!

Not all printers supported.......2007-02-13

While one of my printers does work with this device the printer that I purchased this device for does NOT work with it. I sent a note to support asking for help but to-date have had no reply.

my unit worked, but required patience and a bit of know-how.......2007-01-15

I found the setup for this print server to be very finicky. However, if your unit is functional and your printer is compatible, the product does indeed do what it's designed to do.

These add-on IP products are really ill-suited for the consumer retail space, as there are too many variables to ensure plug and play, trouble-free installation. If you don't know how to make changes to your router's LAN gateway and DHCP settings (among other things), stay away from this or any add-on print server. Save yourself a massive headache and hours of frustration and buy a router with a built-in print server (and just live with the inconvenience of situating the printer near the router).

If you're still reading and know what you're doing, here's a handful of tips (assuming you've made the necessary gateway and DHCP changes to your router first):

1) Make sure that your router's SSID is being broadcast during the print server installation. During the setup's site survey, the print server seems to think that a non-broadcast SSID is the same as a blank SSID; and when it looks for your router for the first time post-setup, it will be expecting to find a blank SSID (even though you might have entered in manually the SSID). Strangely, however, it seems that you can disable the broadcasting of the router's SSID after installation, because now the print server seems to be looking for a router with a hidden SSID.

2) If you've done #1, and you still can't see your router during the setup utility site survey, ignore the site survey result and just manually enter the SSID and channel number into the utility. Even though my router didn't show up in the site survey results, the print server worked after I input the info manually.

3) If you just can't seem to get the setup utility to work, try getting into the print server via your web browser and use IPP to install the printer as a networked IP printer.

4) If possible, keep the printer/server combo well within range of your wireless router. This thing HATES interference or a weak signal, and seems get thrown offline easily under poor wireless conditions.

5) If your wireless setup just won't work, the print server makes a perfectly fine, if expensive, wired print server.

6) Ditto to the other negative comments on the poor documentation, but here's an added frustration: Hawking's support page for this product does not include a download for the Installation Guide or the User's Manual, SO DON'T LOSE THESE ITEMS. Even though the documentation isn't great, it does include vital info on the defaults settings. When your print server requires the inevitable hard reset, and you neither kept the manuals nor wrote down your setup info, you will cry like a baby.

Unit Works But Install Software is Weak.......2007-01-12

The unit does work. On Windows XP the install software will set up the print driver on the network, but often won't recognize that a USB printer is plugged in and subsequently refuses to let you load a printer driver to the device, e.g. Canon printers. You can get around this by trying to open the print server printer port directly from the Windows network. Windows will recognize that no printer driver is loaded on the print server and ask you if you want to load a driver. You may also have to create a Standard TCP/IP Port to use with your printer <> print server connection. Nothing about any of this in the documentation. Web site tech support for this unit does not exist. Email tech support turn around is usually within 24 hours. Don't buy this unit if you don't want to play around getting it installed. On the other hand, this unit can be found at some very low prices right now. Its a trade off.

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