printer problem - taking too long!!!

[bobbyinator]

3 computers at my job are all hooked up to one dell printer, which is fairly new. All of the sudden out of the blue, it's taking forever for my boss' computer to print. Whereas my computer and the sales computer are printing normally and quickly. It's pretty obvious this is not a problem with the printer. However that little observation does me no good in the "fixing the problem" department. So if anyone knows what could possibly be causing this printing delay, any advice or possible solutions would be appreciated.

 

[rclarke250]

I would look at the configuration of the printer settings on the boss's computer....set to print in raw mode, and spooling is enabled and set to imediate printing....or look at the settings of his compared to the others. Also move one of the other computers to the bosses lan drop to see if it's a network issue,if the settings doesn't resolve.

 

[bobbyinator]

I'm sorry, I forgot to mention that the other two computers are networked to my boss' computer. And it's his computer, the one that is not working properly, which the printer is attached to directly.

 

[BaudKarma]

Try deleting and reinstalling the printer driver on your bosses computer. Also check the printer settings for priority and spooling. Lastly, check free disk space on the bosses hard drive, and make sure there's enough space there for his print jobs to queue up.

I try not to let my ignorance prevent me from offering a strong opinion.

 

[cdogg]

Just wanted to ask the obvious to make sure....did you already try rebooting your boss's PC?

If other workstations can print to it quickly, it shouldn't be a problem with the driver.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[cdogg]

it would also help to know what OS's each PC is running.

 

[bobbyinator]

All 3 systems are running XP pro. There is 26 gigabytes of space left, and I have tried restarting and it didn't help

Still trying!!

 

[BaudKarma]

I thought that when printing to a networked printer, each PC uses the driver installed on their own hard drive. Is that incorrect?

Does the bosses computer print slow from every app you try?

I try not to let my ignorance prevent me from offering a strong opinion.

 

[PRPhx]

Shut down and leave the pc off for 15-30 seconds. Turn it back on. Does this improve printing speed?

Also defrag the boss's hard drive. Fragmentation can cause all kinds of strange behaviors.

 

[cdogg]

I thought that when printing to a networked printer, each PC uses the driver installed on their own hard drive...

Not necessarily. If the printer is attached to a print server with it's own network queue name and IP address, then yes, each workstation would have it's own driver. But when sharing a printer that is locally attached to the PC, it's not always that way. It depends on the OS, which is why I asked.

Now that we know the OS's...[tab]

I would try BaudKarma's suggestion of removing/reinstalling the driver. Also, I would disable File/Print Sharing first, then re-enable it after reinstalling the printer on your boss's PC.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[bobbyinator]

I deleted the driver, turned it off for 30 seconds, turned it back on and the computer reinstalled the driver. And I tried to print from notepad (yes it's all programs that it's doing this from), then I tried to print immediately after and it was immediate. However, a couple minutes later I tried to print again and it delayed again. It seems as though theres just a slow communication from his computer to the printer. Almost as if theres another program running that's taking up too much of the computer's resources. Although there isn't, and I even checked msconfig and turned everything off and the problem remains. I'm scanning now for viruses but nothings coming up.

 

[cdogg]

OK, what is the make/model of the printer?

Try turning the printer off for 30 seconds (which clears printer memory), then back on without rebooting the PC. As soon as the printer comes back online, try printing again.

If the print job goes immediately to the printer on the first send, then perhaps it's just taking a few moments to warm up in the cases you've seen. Other users maybe aren't noticing it if they're not right next to the printer?

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[bobbyinator]

It's a dell laser printer 1500. It's not a warm up process, because it does it pretty consistently, and it takes nowhere near as long for my computer to print. It was never this slow in the past, only recently. I haven't been able to put my finger on this problem yet but thanks for all your help, any advice is helpful.

 

[BaudKarma]

The priority setting wouldn't have anything to do with this, would it?



I try not to let my ignorance prevent me from offering a strong opinion.

 

[bobbyinator]

The priority is set to 1, so I don't believe that to be the problem.

 

[cdogg]

OK, read this:

http://www.intel.com/support/netport/sb/cs-015182.htm

You might want to assume the slowness is because the PC sharing the printer has less resources available to send the print job quickly. You might want to look into getting a cheap print server as your solution.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[bobbyinator]

It worked perfectly fine before though..