Brother HL-5250DN Network Ready Laser Printer with Duplex
by BROTHER
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Our Price: $649.88 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $148.00 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
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for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Brother HL-5250DN Network Ready Laser Printer with Duplex
Customer Review: Network issues for this printer solved.
Summary: 5 Stars
I had the same network issues some other posters mentioned. I decided to solve it myself. The exact symptoms were that after a long period of inactivity, print jobs over the network could not wake up the printer. I ran a network sniffer to determine what was going on. I noticed that my laptop was requesting a name resolution for the printer (name to I.P. address mapping)using NetBIOS broadcasts. Since my network does not have a NetBIOS domain controller or a host to reply to that query, the client (laptop's) queries went unanswered and the printer never even knew that someone was trying to send it a print job. This is a software/network configuration issue that will be specific to some setups, and not necessarily a product bug- so you may or may not be affected by it, depending on your network.
A good analogy would be- that you are looking for your friend's phone number, and you don't have a phone book, or a 411 service. You are desperately asking everyone around you for that number but they can't help you since they don't have your friends phone number. Your friend never knows that you were even trying to get in touch.
Now for the solution: Before Windows starts to look for a name - IP mapping on the network using broadcasts, it looks it up first in its name-cache for recently used names (that's why the printer works ok initially when the client already knows its IP address). You can force this always at boot, by pre-priming the cache with the correct entry in your lmhosts file.
Add the following line to the C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\lmhosts file:
192.168.ZZ.YYY BRN_XXXXX #PRE
Here, the 192.168.ZZ.YYY is the IP address of your printer, and BRN_XXXXX is the name of your printer as it shows up on your computer. The #PRE at the end preloads the name cache with this entry so the lmhosts file does not need to be read/re-read. If you do not have the lmhosts file, create a new text file and add the line to that file. Save the file and reboot your system.
This will need to be done to every computer that needs to print to this printer.
With this fix, the printer works like a champ. Wakes up just fine whenever a job is sent to it. Also, this fix may explain why a user mentioned below that they lost connectivity when they disabled NetBIOS over TCP/IP. With this fix, you will most probably be fine by disabling NetBIOS over TCP/IP, for more security: although I have not tested it to be sure.
This printer has the best feature/cost ratio of printers out there now, and the print quality can't be beat either. Needless to say I am happy with it.
Customer Review: Another Suggestion for Network Issue
Summary: 4 Stars
I love this printer. After doing much research, I purchased it because it offered the most features and value for the money. No other printer in this range offers:
(1) automatic full duplex printing (printing on both sides)
(2) Network capabilities
(3) Optional reasonably priced high volume replacement toner cartridge.
(4) Fast printing
I have had the printer for three months. So far no paper jams and it is very fast. I have it connected to both a Mac and a PC tablet. It works flawlessly with the Mac.
So why four stars instead of a five star rating? Unfortunately, I have had a very frustrating experience getting it to work consistantly with my tablet PC over the network. I called Brother several times. They were very nice and answered quickly. Unfortunately, their suggestions, such as updating the network firmware which was also suggested here, and turning off sleep mode, did not help.
I also tried the many excellent suggestions given by other reader at Amazon, including the creation of the lmhosts file; nothing worked. For the benefit of those of you who are having this problem, what finally did work was the following:
Go to Start -> Printers and Faxes -> right click on the Brother HL-5250DN and click properties. A dialog box with several tabs should appear. Click on the Ports tab. The Brother HL-5250DN should be highlighted. Click on the Configure Port Button. You should see two lines "Port Name" and "Printer Name or IP Address". On my machine, the Port Name (BRN_83E33F) and the Printer Name or IP Address were the same. Note that your port name may be slightly different. I replaced the "BRN_83E33F" in the second line with the actual IP address on the second line. This will be something like 192.168.x.x. Where x.x is specific to your setup. There are several ways to find this IP address. Here is one way: hit the blue GO button on the printer three times in a row. The printer should automatically print out three pages titled "Printer Settings". On the third page, about half way down, will be the IP Address under heading. Note at the top of the page you will find the port name listed under <Node Name>. I not sure if this alone fixed it or the combination of this and the creation of an lmhost file as suggested by another Amazon reader. You may need to try both.
If this seems a little complicated, the folks at Brother technical support may be able to walk you through it if you give them the above advice as a starting point. Note, after doing the printer has worked flawlessly!
Customer Review: Great price for a full-featured printer
Summary: 4 Stars
I have been using a Brother HL-1440 for the past four years. It has been totally reliable. It was networked through a Netgear PS121 so it could be easily shared with other computers in the house.
I decided to get the HL-5250DN for the duplexing capability. The HL-1440 has manual duplexing, which can get annoying if you're in another room and have to either waste paper or run back to the printer to turn the pages over.
Amazon got the HL-5250DN to me in two days with free shipping. Setup didn't take long, though I must have made a mistake during the network install portion as the printer didn't show up under Windows. A bit of fiddling with the printer port and IP setup solved the problem. I tried to use Brother's Driver Deployment Wizard to setup the printer on my other computers, but I had trouble there possibly because of the way it was set up on my main computer. I was able to get it working with 3 other computers after a bit of fussing around.
The duplexing seems to work fine. Starup and first page out is much quicker than with the HL-1440. I was able to use a 128MB stick of PC133 SO-DIMM memory left over from a laptop upgrade and so did not have to buy additional memory (never throw anything out)!
My only complaint is that the multi-purpose feeder is a bit of a pain. With the HL-1440, you just stuck an envelope in the front slot and printed it. With the HL-5250, you have to open the multi-purpose cover, insert the envelope, and then change the printer settings to tell it that you have envelope stock. Otherwise, it seems to think that you have plain paper loaded and it won't print.
Initially, the envelopes were coming out creased and almost welded shut. The manual has a fix fo this, but it requires opening the back of the printer and moving some latches that apparently control the roller pressure or some such. That cured the creasing problem, but the manual indicates that you should put the latches back into the "normal" position for other printing. This would be a big hassle since they are inside the back cover. So far, I'm just leaving them in the "envelope" position and plain paper printing still seems to be OK.
Overall, I'm satisfied with the capabilities of the HL-5250. I'll be very happy if it holds up anywhere near as well as my HL-1440.
Update: It's Oct. 2007 and I've now had this printer for over a year. Still no problems at all!
Customer Review: Untouchable bargain for neworkable, duplex printer
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this for a giant print job: 5,500 impressions duplexed. I printed the whole job at 1200 dpi. I wrote this review after I finished that big printing job.
I have this printer interfaced to OS X via Ethernet. The popping others mentioned is the fuser warming up. No big deal. Superb image quality especially at 1200 DPI. The 32 meg of memory allows a full 8.5"x14" 1200 dpi page to be imaged in RAM. 64 bit(!) MIPS processor. The mechanism slows slightly when printing at 1200 DPI but it still amazingly fast.
During duplexing it would have a paper jam every few hundred impressions. The printer would print the first side and the printer would jam when it tried to pull the paper in for the second time. Somewhat annoying. Very, very rarely picks up two sheets from paper tray.
It has a very good power off mode which seems to shut everything off except the ethernet. Never a need to switch off this printer except when running out of toner; the printer does not power down when that happens. It has Postscript emulation (BR-Script3) but it falls short of real Postscript. It runs astonishingly slow and some Postscript features remain unimplemented such as programmable screen patterns. Fortunatly, you can set up your Mac to print with both BB-Script3 and PCL6 modes.
I ran through the initial toner cartridge quickly and replaced it with a TN-580 High Yield cartridge. Though it is advertised for 7000 impressions, it indicated toner depleted and stopped functioning after about 3,500. I -ahem- hacked the cartridge and it has happily yielded 1000 more nice-looking prints so far. If the life of the cartridge cannot be correctly estimated, Brother should just allow the cart to be used until its performance is objectionable. My LaserWriter Pro 600 allowed that.
Another reviewer mentioned that you can't go into duplex mode in OS X without using a Brother utility. Not true. There are two duplex options in the Print dialog under "layout."
Other reviewers have complained about lights dimming and UPSes clicking. Well do you want fast warm up speed and printing speed or not? These things take energy and the Brother sucks the power to get your job done quickly.
Overall this printer has unequaled performance and features at this price point.
Customer Review: Excellent printer in this price range
Summary: 5 Stars
Replaced an aging HP Laserjet 6P that my wife used for her business. She typically prints 1000-2000 pages/month. Was assuming I'd go with another HP, but their price/performance just isn't comparable to this printer. After 3 weeks, we're very pleased with the Brother printer.
Network setup is a snap using the included utitities, as is management of the printer using a built-in web server. You have full control of DNS vs. fixed IP addressing, and the printer can be set to appear as a workgroup member for easy access. There is even a utility to create an install executable that you run on each computer with does the complete install--users don't have to go through the tedious Microsoft network printer install sequence, and no chance of a wrong or old driver. You can also give the printer a friendly name instead of the cryptic alphanumeric strings forced on you by some network print servers.
As far as noise goes, it's no worse than the HPs and Dells I've used, and, at 30 pages/min, the noise doesn't last long. Standby to print is a few seconds. Same deal with initial power surge and lights dimming--this seems to be a characteristic of every laser printer I use. My UPSs click sometimes when it comes on, but they don't alarm.
The built in duplex works fine, is fast, and we've seen no paper wrinkling yet (and we use the cheapest paper we can find). My wife says the 6P used to occasionally wrinkle a sheet, so this may be normal also.
The printer takes laptop-type memory (I'm still kicking myself for throwing some old, slow, low-capacity memory away, because it would have fit in this printer), and upgrading is done via a panel on the side--no tools required. It's compact and has no protruding paper trays to get broken. The only downside for some may be the lack of a straight through paper feed path for thicker stock. We don't need it.
Lack of an LCD display has been mentioned here. IMHO this isn't a problem--the printer has all the lights you need, and you can check everything from the comfort of your chair anyway via the integrated web server, including all usage stats.
It's compact, light, inexpensive, easy to set up, and outperforms the almost $400 HP 1320 for 50-60% of the price. A great deal.