I agree with the previous two contributors. I've also had an Asante MicroAsantePrint running for well over 10 years without problem. In my experience of them they either work or they don't work, there's not an awful lot of maybe they'll work or maybe they wont. They are generally in my experience pretty reliable too. The fact that you've had yours working once, suggests that it is working and it's not likely that all three of the devices you have would all be faulty. Possible, but not likely in my opinion.

My guess and it is only a guess, is that the problem lies somewhere between the hardware connections of hubs, bridge, ethernet and localtalk cabling and your network software setup. I don't think I'd be pointing the finger at the Asante.

Cheers!