Strange Printer Problem-Help!

[Don79]

Hi Guys,
Bare with me. This is weird. There is an employee downstairs(Windows NT machine) who prints to a printer on the network. The printer is located right next to her and is also locally connected to another computer there(Windows NT). Now, sometimes when she prints, the paper prints out to a different printer located upstairs. Therefore, she has to come upstairs and retreive it. If she prints again, it then prints normally to her printer downstairs? What's going on with this routing issue? I took out all the printers from her printer list except for the one she uses downstairs, but it still prints upstairs sometimes. The printer upstairs is also on the network and also locally connected to a Windows 2000 machine. Anyone got a clue on this? Thanks for any suggestions!

 

[MacMan]

Check and I'll bet you there're printer ques for the printers on the other unit. Remember w/ NT the spooling on the server is just storage for the que on the local workstation.

 

[Don79]

Hi MacMan,Hi csopel,

I checked both printers and both have "spool print documents so program finishes faster" and "start printing immediately" checked. Is this what you mean? This option was always checked, but this problem has started only recently.

 

[wolf2x]

just a shot in the dark but....did someone "pool" the upstairs and downstairs printers?

 

[Don79]

Noone has touched any printer settings or anything, but how do I check if someone "pooled" them??? Or, did you mean spool??

 

[wolf2x]

Pooling printers is usually used when you have a high output of documents and you want to speed things up a little. For instance, you have two printers that are the same and they are located close to each other. After you pool them, when documents are sent to the printer, it checks to see which port is available (it will print to whichever one is not busy).

On the printer in question, go to properties, ports tab. Look there to see if multiple ports have been selected and/or if the box for "pooling" the printers is enabled.

 

[Don79]

Hi wolf,

I checked the settings on both the upstairs and downstairs printers, and pooling is not enabled. However, enable bidirectional support is checked. Is this anything? For now, she is printing downstairs as she should be. But wait 10 minutes, and one of her documents will print upstairs. It's intermittant.

 

[2ffat]

Bidirectional means that the computer and printer "talk" to each other. The older printers only accepted input and the computer would have to check the status of the current on the cable to see if there was a problem with the printer.

The description sure matches a pool of printers.
James P. Cottingham

I am the Unknown lead by the Unknowing.
I have done so much with so little
for so long that I am now qualified
to do anything with nothing.

 

[woodwars]

ChecKed the IP address? Sound like both printers have the same IP.