First off, I gotta tell you ... I'm right there with you. Many people will tell you that beyond 300dpi is a waste. I don't care what they say. I can discern the difference between a printed image rendered from a 300 dpi scan and a printed image rendered from a 1200 dpi scan. Obviously you can, too.
It's like this: You and me? We're like roadies for RadioHead. They? They're like roadies for the Partridge Family. It's all music--but, there's a difference, isn't there? We see it, don't we? That's all that matters. Let me go off on a rant, okay?
Geeesh! I don't know what to tell you. I've been watching this thread. I wanted to pull my hair out when this cropped up on my Epson. I got close to slamming that old black Epson with a hammer. I'm still a bit perturbed because I could use it with my router if it would work on a parallel connection (router only has a paralle port). But, it won't (at high res) !!! I have to connect it to the primary PC using USB to do "pretty" pictures.
At first, I presumed my problem had to be a software print spooler problem within the OS. I went deep into "info search" looking for some remedy. What the hell happened? Old Epson worked fine for a while on the paralle port and then ... boom ! Slow down !! Damned head stalled every several times it would swipe the page! What' this crap? Data glitch? Missing some error-checking bits every now and then? Is the driver going backward over and over and over for some re-compilation of the last packet transmission? Shoot !! I don't care to dig any farther at this point. It's time to look to the Microsoft kids for some help. After all, they drive the Mercedes retro-450SEL's looking for the front parking spaces. I don't !!!
I applied print spooler updates to Windows 2000. Had to beg Microsoft for passwords to their Q-fixes. (I'm sure those Q-fixes are now incorporated into Service Pack 4 for Windows 2000 and I feel reasonably sure that any glitches that may have surfaced during those days are now remedied in Windows XP print spoolers.) I also slammed some Windows ME print spooler files into my Windows 98SE configuration. Nothing helped. It drove me nuts. Windows 20000 and Windows 98SE both bogged down with high-res printing to my old Epson Stylus Photo 750. (I still like that damned old thing because I can get cartridges for about $2.50 (U.S.) each.)
(Why do I bother with Windows 98SE, you say? Because there's still a lot of good stuff in the 16-bit world ... but that's another story.)
Unfortunately for you ... switching to the USB port on my machine fixed my Epson problems. What the hell is happening in your situation? That's a killer. I've given it considerable thought and I've come up with nothing !!!
I'll tell you the truth--in these situations I often overlook the obvious. I mean I really overlook the simple stuff !!!!! Maybe you are doing the same? Is is something simple that has been overlooked?
Are you sure your cables are doing "the right stuff?" I'm not saying that the cables have to carry some big corporate logo. The big name companies buy from the same companies you and I probably buy from -- island companies in Taiwan where Chinese children @ 50¢/hour (U.S.) make USB cables. The only difference is that the big companies charge a lot of money for the corporate logo. I'm not saying that you can't get the same quality at $2.50 (U.S) per cable. So, if you only paid $2.50 for the USB cable you are now using -- it's probably just as likely to be "good stuff" -- just like the $29.95 (U.S.) "stuff" you buy with a HP brand name or a Belkin brand name.
But, I wonder if it's one of those things where some transmission problem has gone wrong? You gotta figure that digital data transmission is even more finicky than analog waveform transmission. Know what I mean? In the days of cell phones based on analog transmission, you could swivel your hips and lean toward a window to pick up your caller's voice. Nowadays with digital crap on the cellphone line? What happens? You get just one micromillimeter out of range and the entire transmission is lost and your conversation goes dead and you have to re-dial your caller or you have to wait until they call you back.
Same difference with digital transmissions over the USB cable, I guess. Enough crosstalk ... or a bad connection at the contacts ... and you've lost enough bits that the whole can't be recompiled without backtracking a lot.
I'm only saying the you've got to do the "right stuff" from your USB port all the way down to the head of your printer. As you know, there's a whole bunch of low-voltage/low-amperage signals with miniscule timing intervals between the pulses. All those "jolts" gotta get there with determined precision !!!
Maybe ...
1. Crosstalk can be a problem. You tried isolating the cables so the printer's USB cables aren't tangled within the cables for your 250-watt 6-Channel sound system and your Analog/DV/MPEG2 video converter to the FireWire port and your analog input to your video card and your DV input to your other monitor and your TV-out from the video card to the 48-inch plasma display and the 16 or more AC/DC adapters to peripherals and the 4-line PBX connection to your voice phone and the LAN connection to your cable/DSL modem and the PS/2 port and the myriad of serial connections and the multiple other USB and FireWire devices you've got connected?
2. Clean connections? You bought some of that hex-oxy-pentane mixture that they sell as "contact cleaner?" Comes as a spray for about $3.00 (U.S.) Hardware stores. Electronics stores. Makes a difference! I swear ! Spray the contacts where the cables connect to your PC and your printer and anywhere in-between. Immediately after spraying...plug and un-plug ... plug and un-plug ... plug and un-plug ... over and over so that the contacts swipe each other over and over to perform a cleaning procedure.
Beyond this? I don't know. To tell you the truth, I'm pretty much fed up with Hewlett Packard as a whole. Canon is offering a lot of good products. I just touted our corporation into buying 75 Canon multi-function printer/fax/e-mail machines based on the flagrant mis-representation by arrogant HP reps and the poor performance of the HP demos dumped into our offices.
I'm thinking that it is possible that the HP printer you bought just might have some poorly contrived chips in it and there might be buffers that just can't empty as designed?
There's probably a firmware update to fix it? Don't look. If there is such a fix, you won't hear about it. HP won't tell you how and they won't give you the firmware. You'll have to plunk down some money for a new chip installed through a service contract or something if you have a HP printer that retails for $3,000 or more. Since your printer cost probably less than $100 (U.S.) you have no hope. It's cheaper to go out and buy a new printer.
//rus//
