Brother HL-2170W -- The Bleeding Edge of Printers

I decided to buy the new Brother HL-2170W wireless monochrome laser jet the first week it became available to the public in late December, 2007. It arrived mid-week. Yesterday I tried to install it and I failed miserably. Went to the Brother website, and noticed only one FAQ was posted. I intepreted the single question as, What if I do NOT want to use the supplied HL-2170W install CD, and elect go through the process manually? The lengthy Brother response included a statement in the first paragraph that said "Check your CD version and call the Brother toll free number if you have the earlier version ... If you have a CD that is version X, you do not need to call Brother, and follow the detailed steps listed below and install the printer and driver without the CD". Then I noticed Step 13 in the response was cut-off in mid sentence. My Takaway was this: the CD that came with my HL-2170W might be flawed.

So I called the Seller on Saturday afternoon, said I want to return the product, and they scheduled a pickup this Wednesday. But tomorrow I will cancel the HL-2170W return because I figured out how to get the HL-2170W hooked up and now it's running fine. Now every computer in the house--two wired desktops and two wireless notebooks--can print to it. We can move it anywhere. It prints fast with excellent print quality, and there is very little lag until printing. I look forward to reviewing future posts on this product. In this post I'll summarize my lessons learned and recommendations for those of you bold enough to be on the bleeding edge until Brother gets their act together on the HL-2170W installation materials.

First of all, my home network features a Linksys WRT54g router (offers wired/wireless combo), Motorola cable modem, 2 Cat-5 wired Desktop computers running Windows XP Pro, and two new windows notebook computers with built-in wireless g connectivity running Windows Vista Home Basic. The Linksys WRT54g router features the trademarked Secure Easy SetUp CD and installed in a snap, which included setting up the security features. My XP desktop computer functions as the host computer. Prior to installing the HL-2170W the purchase everyone in our household was using USB drives to plug into my desktop computer so they could print to an old HP color ink jet that was connected with a USB cable to my computer. The HL-2170W is our first network printer.

Here's how my HL-2170W install process got sidetracked and left me kicking myself. I looked at the HL-2170W manual and the cover said set up involves only two steps. So I was thinking Wow this is AWESOME, just like the Linksys router. So I proceeded to install the CD on my host computer and started breezing through the set-up screens and along the way made some big mistakes. When I got to the Setting Up Wireless window I selected the default Step-by-Step Install (Recommended) and clicked Next without any hesitation. This mistake was compounded in the Window pertaining to Authentication Method and Encryption Mode, where the HL-2170W default Encryption Mode is WEP (later found out my Linksys used the more advanced WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access). Got to the end and noticed the HL-2170W was mapped on my network but not assigned an IP address. The HL-2170W emphasizes the trademarked Secure Easy Set-up in the HL-2170 product description and manual. But the install CD process alternatively recommends a process that makes it easy for you to commit an error and resort to more complicated procedures.

So this morning I thought about how I may have screwed up and decided to give it another try. I printed out instructions for resetting the internal HL-2170W internal print server, which is what you do to start over on Step 1. I uninstalled the printer driver from my computer. I made sure the standard Windows XP Firewall was turned off. I re-insatalled the HL-2170W set-up CD and got to the window to select the non-default Automatic Install (Advanced) to capitalize on the Linksys Secure Easy Setup approach. This is Page 26 of the manual, entitled Configuration Using the automatic wireless (one-push) method. Except this is actually a two-push method (push HL-2170W button in Step 9 for 1 second, then on Step 12 you'll need to push the Linksys Router for a second). Note: The Linksys WRT54g router push button is actually the Cisco Systems logo on the router. Don't be fooled into thinking your router does not have a push button.

Unfortunately, going through this process knocked the two notebooks off the previously configured wireless network (I do not know the cause), so I had to go through the process for re-adding them to the network.

Finally, I went to each computer to with the HL-2170W CD to install the printer driver only. At this point I was extremely patient and reading every detail to make sure I was selecting the right option and entering the correct information. Windows Vista seemed more tedious than Windows XP.

My recommendation for anyone considering purchasing the Brother HL-2170W printer is simple. Don't buy the HL-2170W at this time unless you have a Linksys Router with Secure Easy Setup equipped with the push button, or have computer networking expertise and many hours of spare time to figure it out. In my opinion, the key decision error made by Brother is providing an install CD that, by default, takes you down a path with land mines that require you know router settings and information that are not the listed defaults. Unbelievably, the simpler push button approach that worked for me is listed as the "Advanced" option in the setup process that is NOT RECOMMENDED by Brother. They steer you away from simplicity and into complexity. Brother will discover this over next few months and likely clarify their install manual and CD. In the interim, they may get hammered by many frustrated customers who are not saavy computer users, will make mistakes during setup, will not want to hassle with re-setting the server, and will return the product. Good luck. Right now I'm very satisfied and awarding four stars because my HL-2170W is working great.