Hi Eddie,

Have you examined the event log of the machine that keeps losing connection
to see if there might be a hint as to the problem there?  It might be
difficult to figure out when it lost connectivity, but it's worth checking.

You might also check the power-saving options on the NIC of the machine that
is losing connectivity.  Disable power saving if it is enabled.

Perhaps check to see if the computer sees the printer as a shared resource
using net view.  Some help on using net view is in the link below if you
need it.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/n
et_view.mspx?mfr=true

If you type "gpupdate /force" at a command prompt instead of rebooting the
machine, does this work?

i installed a print server on the network and this seems to have cured the
problem, thanks anyway