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I have a printer HP color Laserjet pro MFP M176n, and I want to connect it to my laptop using an Ethernet cable directly, but I have a message that says that the connection failed.I tried to do it with a router in the middle, (I connected the laptop to the router and the printer to the router) and it worked perfectly, so the only time I get the error is when the cable is directly connected to the printer.

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  • Are you sure it can be connected this way?
    – Nmath
    Feb 25, 2021 at 16:18
  • With a cross over cable you may be able to but not 100 percent sure.
    – David
    Feb 25, 2021 at 16:21
  • @David In the olden days one needed a crossover Ethernet cable. These days the network cards are smarter and automatically adjust when they detect two computers are connected directly. I hope this will also work in this scenario of a printer being connected directly to the laptop.
    – user68186
    Feb 25, 2021 at 20:35

3 Answers 3

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The only ways it will work is if you enable a DHCP server on the laptop to enable the printer to get an IP from it, or a pass through internet connection sharing on that port on the laptop so it will get an IP from your router. This is why it works when connected to the router, it gets the IP from there then your laptop sees it and can print. Without an IP it will never be seen.

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Background

By default the printer gets an IP address assigned by the router. The laptop by default does not assign IP addresses. That's why the printer does not work when you connect the printer directly to the laptop using an Ethernet cable.

Easy solution

Use an USB cable to connect the printer to the laptop. If that is not an option

Try the following

Step 1

Connect the printer to the router and make sure it is discovered by the laptop.

Step 2

Find the IP address assigned to the printer. There are many ways to do this. You can find it from the router, or the printer, or from your laptop. The easiest may be to use the printer's builtin display and setup menu.

Step 3

Access the printer's setup from your laptop using a browser like Firefox. See the printer's manual how to do this.

Step 4

Assign a static IP address to the printer. You can assign the same IP address that was assigned by the router. You may have to set the manual subnet mask and default gateway also.

Make sure the printer still works.

Step 5

Unplug the Ethernet cable from the router and plug it directly to the laptop. See if works.

Hope this helps

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Check the manual, maybe this is your problem:

The computer is using the incorrect IP address for the product

  1. Open the printer properties and click the Ports tab. Verify that the current IP address for the product is selected. The product IP address is listed on the product configuration page.

  2. If you installed the product using the HP standard TCP/IP port, select the box labeled Always print to this printer, even if its IP address changes.

  3. If you installed the product using a Microsoft standard TCP/IP port, use the hostname instead of the IP address.

  4. If the IP address is correct, delete the product and then add it again.

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  • The printer gets no IP when connected to the Laptop port.
    – user1179897
    Feb 25, 2021 at 16:45

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