Printer that does not like USB 3.0

[moverton]

Hello everyone. Hope someone can give me some thoughts on troubleshooting a laser printer.

Our group was donated a color laser printer. Specifically a Ricoh Aficio CL4000DN. When I plug my Surface 2 to the printer, I get an error "Not Compatible with this version of Windows.". I did some digging and found a message that was something like, This printer does not support USB 3.0. Please plug into a USB 2.0 and try again." Not the exact message, but it was something like that.

Is there any way to get around this limitation? Something software or hardware related? I have access to this printer about twice a week so if someone thinks of a few things to try, I can try them and get back to you on if it worked or now.

OR, do you think it is specifically the RT version of Windows? I don't have another device to test with.

 

[onlysublime]

Does your group use a network? You can put the printer on another computer and share the printer. And then install the shared printer on your Surface 2.

If the printer is fairly common, there should be drivers in Windows RT. Otherwise, the printer won't work as almost no one has made Windows RT versions of their printer drivers.

 

[moverton]

No network setup at all at the moment. Just direct connection via USB at the moment. May be on a network eventually, but that will be a while until that is setup.

 

[onlysublime]

There's no other computer you can test the printer on? I looked in the built-in drivers. There's a generic Ricoh class driver that applies to many Ricoh printers. It may or may not work. What I would try to do is get some other computer, use the built-in Ricoh class driver to see if that works. If it does, chances are good that the Windows RT Ricoh class driver will work for you.

Now, some drivers are only available once you connect to Windows Update but without the printer attached, you cannot poll the correct driver (if there is one) from Windows Update.

 

[ajayden]

You can use your phone as a hotspot and connect both printer and the surface to the hotspot. Then you can print through wireless.

 

[moverton]

Correct, no other computers at the location at this time. I only have mine because I bring it along for jobs that I do in the area. I will check and see if someone can bring a laptop from home. Will try the "default" one that installs and also the generic driver. I did connect my surface to my phones hotspot hoping a driver update would pull over but no go. And thank you for your help so far onlysublime.

Ajayden: The printer does not have wireless built in. It does support wired networking, but we don't have any of that setup yet.

 

[dirtyvu]

You don't need a strong computer to act as your print server. Just get any computer onto the network. Connect the printer to that computer via USB and install the driver. And share. Even an $70 PC will do.

 

[moverton]

Generic Ricoh driver did not work for Surface 2. Going to see if someone can bring their laptop.

 

[onlysublime]

If the issue is the USB interface, it's the USB interface and not the driver. That driver may work with the printer attached to a different machine and being shared over a network. You can get really cheap old routers. Heck, I have like 5 perfectly fine routers in the garage in a box (older things like wireless G, N-draft, etc.) somewhere. A lot of people throw away routers as they upgrade.

 

[moverton]

Thanks for the input. Will probably have to be a network setup. Just wanted to test the machine out since it was donated. I believe the printer has an Ethernet port so networking shouldn't be a problem once we get some of that setup. I'm also wondering how well a raspberry pi based print server would do. May have to experiment some. Save up my Bing rewards and grab a pi soon.

 

[dirtyvu]

If the printer has an Ethernet port it is a network printer and doesn't need any computer attached. Just set a static IP address so that printing is reliable.