Slow network printing

We are currently using Deskjet 6940 printers over a network and are having issues with the time it takes for documents to print.
We are using Windows Server 2003 and a variety of machines using either XP or Vista. When sending documents to print it can take up to 5 minutes to start printing but when printing directly via USB they print almost instantly. The users are getting increasingly frustrated with the delay and we have so far been unable to find a solution to this problem.
The strange thing is that when printing from the machines within the IT department documents print out almost immeditely to any of the printers withing the company.

My first suggestion would be to confirm that you are all using the same drivers... also, generally there is a setting within the printer driver relating to the time-delay of spooling the print job, and you can select whether you want a job to completely spool itself before printing or whether a job can begin printing right away without being completely spooled... my guess is this setting is checked to "Spool completely before printing"...

Finally, if you're printing quite a lot... get a LaserJet :-)

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Originally Posted by cs_steve

My first suggestion would be to confirm that you are all using the same drivers... also, generally there is a setting within the printer driver relating to the time-delay of spooling the print job, and you can select whether you want a job to completely spool itself before printing or whether a job can begin printing right away without being completely spooled... my guess is this setting is checked to "Spool completely before printing"...

Finally, if you're printing quite a lot... get a LaserJet :-)

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All are using the same drivers and they are set to print right away. We have a laser printer on the network and this has the same problem.

The other problem occuring as well is they won't print jpegs. The printer in our office will but the exact same printer elsewhere won't. The file goes into the print queue but disappears and never prints. Have tried uninstalling then reinstalling and creating new ports, nothing seems to work.

I had a slow printing problem with ethernet, using the PCL6 driver on an HP LaserJet P3005 printer.
When the PCL5 driver was used, the problem disappeared.

Can you set these printers up as "local printers" on each computer rather than networking it through a print server?

Notice in Figure A that there are two options about halfway down the page: Spool Print Documents So Program Finishes Printing Faster and Print Directly To The Printer. Unless the spooler is malfunctioning, I recommend always spooling the document rather than printing directly to the printer. The process of printing directly from a program is much slower than spooling a print job because the program sends the print job to the printer at the same time it builds the print job. Having to do two tasks at once can really slow things down. From the user’s standpoint, the big problem with the print-direct method is the program that he or she is using will not let him or her do anything else until the print job finishes printing. By spooling the print job, however, the program will dump the print job to the spooler instead of trying to handle the printing tasks. Sending a print job to the spooler usually completes in a matter of seconds (depending on the size of the print job). Once it has been sent, the program assumes that printing has completed, allowing the user to continue working.

Direct network printing can be tricky
When a user sends a print job directly to a printer, and he or she uses a local printer, the process ties up the computer for a while. However, sending the print job directly to a printer connected to a network can cause other problems.

Depending on what type of print server the printer was connected to, the print job could become mixed with other print jobs. For example, some types of printers treat each page of a 10-page print job that was sent directly to the printer as a separate print job. In one possible scenario, the first two pages might print, and then another user’s print job might pop out, followed by another page or two, and so on. Imagine what could happen if you had a printer pool set up; each page of a multipage document could be printed by a different printer within the pool. The user would have to check each printer for pieces of the document and try to put the pieces in order.


folder printing

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Originally Posted by saraseo

The process of printing directly from a program is much slower than spooling a print job because the program sends the print job to the printer at the same time it builds the print job. Having to do two tasks at once can really slow things down. From the user’s standpoint, the big problem with the print-direct method is the program that he or she is using will not let him or her do anything else until the print job finishes printing. By spooling the print job, however, the program will dump the print job to the spooler instead of trying to handle the printing tasks. Sending a print job to the spooler usually completes in a matter of seconds (depending on the size of the print job). Once it has been sent, the program assumes that printing has completed, allowing the user to continue working.

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This is true for computers and printers that both have enough memory to deal with it. I know that at my last company, we would set it to send directly to the printer to keep larger print jobs, like PDF documents from jamming up the memory on both the computer and the printer. I guess what I'm saying is that if it's slow on one setting, switch to the other and see if that works better. They're each faster than the other in particular environments.

In know this is sarcastic, but a Deskjet 6940 is a $99 printer. I wouldn't have high expectations. I didn't search very hard but it wouldn't surprise me if this were a host based printer, which usually has more issues.

Get a cross-over cable and go directly from the computer to the printer, nothing in between. See if you still have the problem.

Actually, Jeff makes a good point. If you're doing a lot of black and white printing on this printer, I would look into replacing or supplementing it with a laser printer with networking capabilities. These will start print jobs faster than inkjets and have more sophisticated networking tools built into them.

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Originally Posted by ukbit

We are using Windows Server 2003 and a variety of machines using either XP or Vista. When sending documents to print it can take up to 5 minutes to start printing but when printing directly via USB they print almost instantly...
The strange thing is that when printing from the machines within the IT department documents print out almost immediately to any of the printers withing the company.

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It also might have something to do with the difference between XP and Vista. Are the IT guys using XP and most of the complaining users using Vista? I know Vista has had consistent problems with many HP inkjet printers that were released before it came out, especially over networks.