Can't get printing to work!

[altoid boy]

been struggling with this. I once had cups working properly for wireless printing but the past couple of releases have broken this for me. please bear with me, i don't really know what i'm doing...

mac os 10.4.9, samsung ml-1710 printer, u.s. robotics wireless router with print server.

plugging the samsung directly into the mac via usb works fine.

printing wirelessly via the router does not.

i installed the latest cups (today) but this doesn't fix it.

i go into printer setup utility and add an http printer, using the device url that my router gives me (http://192.168.2.1:1631/printers/My_Printer). that all checks out ok, and the printer is successfully added.

when i try and print, the app sends the doc to the printer, but the printer's queue keeps telling me "connected to 192.168.2.1" but never gets any further. it hangs there indefinitely.

i read somewhere on the cups site that printer setup utility may not work properly after cups is installed, and instead we should use the localhost:631 setup utility instead. i tried this, but two things went wrong: (1) the samsung ml-1710 does not show up in the list of supported printers -- even though it shows up in the printer setup utility -- so instead i have to choose an alternate (samsung ml-1000, which used to work for me in the past). Problem 2: same results - i try to print and it just shows me "connected to 192.168.2.1" and that's it.

i have no idea what else to try. this has been broken for over a month and i'm eager to get the printer working again, wirelessly!