Which is quicker, Parallel cable or TCP?

[KimLeece]

We use a laser printer in a network which is at present connected via TCP. It prints very slowly - especially graphics. Would it be better to connect it via a parallel printer cable tp LPT1?

Kim.

'Everybody is ignorant - only on different subjects.'
Will Rogers.

 

[edfair]

Try it with direct connect. The actual transmission speed will be slower but I suspect that the throughput to the printer will increase.
Graphics printing is inherently slow.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[Kocky]

I don't believe it will make a difference.
The printer has a data buffer that is filled by the windows spooler after you send a print job. This buffer is always at 100 % because the printer will never be able to process the data quicker than it is being offered by the spooler.
What do you find slow ? What type of printer is it and how large are the images that you print.

 

[KimLeece]

It's a Xerox ColorLaser 3100 - as far as I know it is only sold on the Japanese market -
The strange thing is that actually we have three different printers (same model) in three different school networks. The networks are identical - a staffroom windows 2000pro machine with cables for the teachers to connect to their own laptops + 24 student machines in the computer room. The printers do not print at the same speed however - to print an A4 photo on one machine will take 5 mins or so and on another up to 20. My main problem is that I can't read enough Japanese to see exactly how everything is set up so I can't tell if one school system is setup slightly differently from another. I suspect that it might be a spooling issue but as per my original question I am curious as to why the setup is via TCP rather than a direct LPT1 cable. To get to the printer you have to install it as a network printer as a share on the Windows 2000 machine so I don't see why the Windows 2000 machine doesn't use the LPT1 cable - except for the physical distance between computer and printer. It would seem to me to be logical that if the TCP/IP traffic is composed of local file networking/internet use/ + printing then it might get slowed in relation to available bandwith - something that might be improved by a direct lpt1 parallel cable.

Kim.

'Everybody is ignorant - only on different subjects.'
Will Rogers.

 

[edfair]

The data buffer probably ending up somewhere between 33 and 66%. It shuts down at some point near the top to avoid overrun and starts up again at some point when the bucket is under 33%. Some have settings you can change.
Since using the lpt port gives the printer to the computer to monitor It can process faster.
I get around some problems like this by outputting to a serial port and throw a S/P converter with buffer in the middle. Dump goes at machine speed and print does its thing at whatever speed it can handle.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[KimLeece]

Thanks for the answers. I'll take a cable to school with me and try some direct printing from my laptop.

Kim.

'Everybody is ignorant - only on different subjects.'
Will Rogers.

 

[bcastner]

I would see if the printer driver, and print monitor, associated with all three printers is identical in version.

Remember too that there is a great deal of "luck" involved with this issue: if the print server is busy handling multiple jobs for other printers the resources dedicated to printer A versus Printer B become problematic, particularly if they are all signalling to the print server a buffer full or printer busy error condition.

One "hidden" difference could well be that printer A (faster) is provisioned with more internal RAM than printer B (slower). For graphic print jobs this makes a large difference in printer speed.

A second important "hidden" difference is model changes. While they may all show as the same printer roughly, often improved processors are added to the model line over time. This can make a tremendous difference in print speed. Even though the printer looks identical.

Finally, what I began with. The printer driver is attached to a specific printer defined on the print server. You may well have three different versions of the printer driver installed for the printer on three different defined print streams. A cleaning of the print server might be in order:

. Remove all defined printers, and printer monitors. Use the web to find the latest drivers for all printers. Defrag the hard drive(s) of the print server, and reinstall the network printers with a consistent and up-to-date print driver for all printers. See:

http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/CleanPrinterDrivers.htm

My sympathies are with Ed Fair's original answer: the parallel cable (IEEE bi-directional certified) does a byte transfer with little overhead, your TCP/IP while nominally faster is much less efficient in transferring data.

But I am also in sympathy with Forum member Kocky's comment that the difference is likely not due to the transfer method, but as a root issue lies elsewhere.

Hope this helps,
Bill Castner

 

[olderthandirt]

Check the specs on the printers. It's possible that one has more memory than the others. This increses printing speed.

 

[KimLeece]

I will check it out next week but I am fairly sure that there will be no differences in the drivers between the machine. These printers - as was the rest of the network - all installed at the same time - three schools had identical systems put in. At first the server was a Japanese Win 98 machine - as were all the rest - more recently the new server Win2000pro was added and now manages the printers. I know that there were originally issues with XP - the first teachers who bought laptops that came pre-installed with XP home couldn't install the lasers as Fuji/Xerox didn't have an XP driver available - that has now changed and Fuji/Xerox has provided the new drivers. The printers are actually leased so Fuji/Xerox engineers are generally responsible for maintenance. Unfortunately, although I can install and use the Japanese drivers on an English ME laptop with no problems - the printer utilities are a different matter - I just get garbled screens which are ok to set paper sizes, resolutions etc as I know which boxes control but more detailed stuff becomes impossible. I imagine that the drivers will be the same - but will check.
I also imagine that the printer RAM etc. will be the same - but will check.
I changed my local settings yesterday to print direct to the printer rather than use the Spooler - that seemed to print a bit quicker - an A4 photo printed in about 2 minutes.
As mentioned above it is sometimes a question of luck and circumstance. There is obviously a huge difference between printing when nothing else is happening or when there are 24 computers being used by the children during a lesson, or when several class teachers are trying to print photos at the same time.
Anyway - thank you all very much for your ideas and input - as far as I can I will test them out next week and see if we can get an improvement.

Kim.

'Everybody is ignorant - only on different subjects.'
Will Rogers.

 

[bcastner]

You do not specify, but you might consider the feature under Windows 2000 and XP to "pool" the printers.

 

[KimLeece]

Pooling doesn't seem to be an option as the printers are at three different locations and the networks are not really connected.

Kim.

'Everybody is ignorant - only on different subjects.'
Will Rogers.

 

[bcastner]

Pool at each location.

 

[bcastner]

See, for example:

http://windows.about.com/library/tips/bltip395.htm

 

[hdingman]

I've worked with Xerox since the original Ventura Publisher for DOS days, and I memorized their first help desk question:

"Have you tried reinstalling the software from the original Xerox distribution disks?"

I can't tell you how sick I got of hearing that question, nor how frustrated I got by having it fix strange problems so frequently.

hd