Network printer "eats" system resources

[mrdance]

I have a Epson Stylus Color 600 on a W2K server. Two other machines are directly connected via a switch on a lan. The other machines are running on W2K Pro. Finding the printer works like a charm. When printing, it sometimes go slow, and always the cpu usage is at top. The W2K server runs on a Celeron 800. 256MB ram.

Any ideas or solutions?

Thanks / Henrik

 

[peterve]

are you using Win2K's native drivers, or Epson drivers ? Peter Van Eeckhoutte
peter.ve@pandora.be

 

[mrdance]

There is no driver for win2k on their website. I assume that the one provided with win2k are the only one that exist. The one that ships with win2k seems tailored because it has a name "Epson Stylus Color 600 or something", and Epson has many models.

The printer is connected through a paralell port, is it that one that slows the system down? What are the different settings in bios meaning, something like SPP or ECP?

/ Thanks Henrik

 

[Guest_imported]

What is the cpu usage when not printing? I'd be interested in knowing what applications are running at the time you checked.

 

[Stannerack]

Several points:

1. I would make sure the parallel port is set to EPP in the BIOS. v1.7 or 1.9 will do, if you get the option.

2. Celerons are not the best processor for running a server OS on. The OS relies very heavily on processor cache, which the Celerons don't have a great deal of. Thats why the P3 Xeons perform so well under NT or 2K.

3. I would invest in a cheap print server box with 1 or 2 parallel ports on it. That will take the load of the server using old legacy resources. It can still have the share for the printer, but all comms are done via your switch.