I am trying to setup 3 network printers for a client. He has an Xfinity modem / router, and there is only 1 free ethernet port available on the router. To avoid buying a switch, I used an old router he had lying around. I plugged in the 3 network printers into ports 2, 3, and 4. When plugging the WAN port from the old router to the empty port on the Xfinity modem / router none of the printers show up on the network. A single device does show up as a connected device in the Xfinity admin settings. When I remove the connection from the old routers WAN port and the empty ethernet port on the Xfinity modem, and plug that into port 1 on the old router, 1 of the network printers shows up. So the Xfinity router empty ethernet port is plugged into the old routers port 1. The 3 network printers are plugged into ports 2, 3, and 4, but only 1 of those printers shows up to add in Windows. It doesn't seem to matter which order I plug these in, still only 1 shows up. Is there a solution to get all of the network printers to show up?
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1`To avoid buying a switch, I used an old router he had lying around` - Why? Why not use the right equipment for the job? Switches are not expensive. – joeqwerty Feb 16 '18 at 03:34
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@joeqwerty I was time constrained, I am going to go buy a switch and finish the project tomorrow, but I was worried that if I buy a switch, that I would still run into the same issue – mcbeav Feb 16 '18 at 04:13
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1The old router will only work if you use ONLY the 4 lan ports AND you disable DHCP on the old router. Then it will act as a simple switch. But, like already suggested, just buy and install a real switch. – Appleoddity Feb 16 '18 at 06:03
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The WAN port is usually on a separate subnet. Forwarding packets from WAN to LAN might work, if you have direct access to the router's console, but just using the LAN ports (3 printers, 1 for the "uplink") should work in your case. – Olaf Dietsche Feb 16 '18 at 07:26