Laserjet 5M print speed

[pw5599]

I've acquired a 26,000 page count 5M (NOT color) but it is unbelievably slow especially for pdf documents. For a 10-20 page job it can take half hour to an hour. It prints one page, stops, thinks, and finally several minutes later another page prints...and so on. I am using the only driver posted on HP's site which is a PS driver. I'm running it as a network printer with it's built in jetdirect, on a healthy 10/100 small home network. Most systems accessing it are WinXP Pro.

The only thing I did to the printer was remove the original 2 simms (2MB RAM/ROM and 4MB RAM) and filled all slots with 16MB simms I had lying around. This seemed to work until I realized that the slot 1 - 2MB RAM/ROM simm should be left in. I put that back in and the other 3 slots contain a 16MB stick each. The printer recognizes all the memory and runs error-free.

Are there any tips on how to increase the printing speed?
Should both the original simms be left in?

[cs_steve]

Experiment with a different driver ... try for example PCL 5 driver for Windows 2000:
If all the memory is recognized (prints out on config page) it shouldn't be a problem with the memory ...

Here is a link --
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareIndex.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodNameId=14997&prodTypeId=18972&prodSeriesId=25479&swLang=8&taskId=135&swEnvOID=181

[pw5599]

Thanks for the suggestion. I actually installed that driver on one XP system yesterday and it does help some. I would guess that's about as good as it gets for this printer.