Printer won't comm with Router

My wife and I just purchased our first laptop, and a wireless router(Belkin N600 DB with 1 USB port) today. We have a traditional tower pc setup in the spare room with a printer (HP 1210v pcs). We brought the router and laptop home set them both up and they communicated perfectly on the first try. My wife can surf and print from the laptop with no problem.

We do however have one problem. My PC doesn't seem to communicate with the printer anylonger. I have had them both for a few years and never had any trouble. When the printer is connected to the USB port on the router my PC doesn't communicate with the printer. If I disconnect the the printer from the router and physically connect it back to the PC it prints just fine.

I have the PC connected with a LAN to the router. I have installed the Belkin software, I have uninstalled and reinstalled all my software for the printer from the original disc. The printer is shared. I am currently waiting on a return call from Belkin. They are supposed to be attempting to figure out what my problem could be.

If anyone here has any ideas I would appreciate some suggestions. I have been working on this for over 5 hours now and I am getting a bit frazzled.

:banghead

Thanks in advance.

 

Was the printer always connect via USB to the router? or was it connected to the PC and you moved it?
The USB port may not be for adding any device to the router, some modems are USB.
Are both computers in the same workgroup?
Share the printer from the desktop if it is not a network ready printer,but the desktop has to on all the time to print.

 

Thanks for the reply foogoo,
We bought the router yesterday. Before that the printer was connected to the desktop via USB. I had to connect the printer to the Router via USB so that our new laptop would be able to use it.

The explanation of what the router ports can be used for clearly states that the USB port "Supports USB printers".

As far as both computers being in the same work group. The desktop is running 32bit XP home, and the laptop is running Windows 7. XP does not support work groups, as such. However, in talking to Belkin tech support I was assured that with the router "seeing" that my desktop was connected through a LAN that it should work.

Thanks again for your reply foogoo. I am about to get back on the phone with belkin to see if they have any answers for me. If not I may take this router back get a refund and try one from another manufacturer.

Wish me luck.
:banghead

 

I have a new thought on this matter. I noticed yesterday that there are USB port multipliers in stores. What I mean is this, I noticed a USB cable that had four USB ports coming of of what I can only describe as a manifold.
My thought is this, if I plug that into my desktop, connect my printer to one of those ports, and connect the router to another one of those USB ports will that split the signal thus satisfying my desktop and my router?

 

That is just an unpowered hub, no it will not work that way.

The manual says "You can manually check the status of your printer by visiting the USB Print and Storage Manager, found under the Belkin Router
Manager icon displayed in your system tray"
"Each computer that will use the printer must have
both the Belkin software and the printer’s driver installed.
If the print driver is not installed, you will be asked to install
it by the Belkin USB Print and Storage Manager."

Did you install that software?