Can I connect one computer to MF644cdw via wifi and another via USB?

[wwolfeld]

Hi, I have a new MF644cdw printer/scanner. I have two different computers that I want to be able to use the printer/scanner, but the two computers are on different WiFi networks (and need to stay that way for security reasons). Can I connect one computer to the machine via WiFi and the other computer via USB?

[shadowsports]

Grreetings,

Can this work?  It can.

Is this something you want to do, no.  Due to reliablility, this is not a recommended best practice. 

[wwolfeld]

Interesting. Can you tell me what kinds of reliability problems have been reported? If it's just that the printer can't handle the two interfaces both sending jobs at the same time, then I'm not worried about that (though good to know about it). I'm the only person that uses the machine from both computers, and I can easily avoid creating such a conflict.

Do the reliability problems go beyond that?

Thank you

[Hector · Accepted solution]

Hello Wwolfeld,

The printer should be able to handle both connections at the same time without any issues. If jobs are sent while the printer is processing a job from the other computer, it will wait until the job is complete.

For any suggestion or help with the connections, please reply to this message with the version of the Mac or Windows operating system that you have on the computers.

[wwolfeld]

You are correct. It works perfectly! Though I confess I don't understand why.

-The only things I changed were to select "Use Direct Connection: ON", and to enter an IP Address for Direct Conn. which is on the same subnet as the computer connecting by USB, but outside the DHCP range for that subnet. I also enabled "Use as USB Device" and "Use USB Storage Device".

-I don't know why the above changes made it work. First, I cannot see why a USB connection would require an IP address (and even now, pinging it from the computer on the same subnet returns Destination Host Unreachable). Second, the manual seems to use the term "direct connection" to refer to a direct wireless connection from a mobile device to the printer, and doesn't seem to have anything to do with the USB connection. Third, if I'm reading the User Manual correctly, all mentions of the term "USB" refer to the USB port on the front of the machine, not the USB connection on the rear. (The Quick Start guide has one column for using the USB connection, but it says nothing about enabling anything in the UI.

-Anyway, thank you, Hector, for the response.