HP LASERJET II

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Guest

There is a Hp Laserjet II and there is a problem when it prints - it prints
one page and then pends for about 3 5 mns before it prints the next page - so
result a free page text document takes about 10 mins to print

print spooler is on the printer settings and started in services

is it becuase printer is so old or what ?
 
Max said:
There is a Hp Laserjet II and there is a problem when it prints - it prints
one page and then pends for about 3 5 mns before it prints the next page - so
result a free page text document takes about 10 mins to print

print spooler is on the printer settings and started in services

is it becuase printer is so old or what ?
Click to expand...

Hard to tell. We don't know how much mempory you have in your computer
OR in your printer. Data transfer rates could also be affected by your
printer port configuration and cable condition or length.

The page content can have an effect on print times too. A page of text
will typically print much faster than a page with a lot of graphics on
it. The use of multiple fonts on the page can also cause slowdowns, as
the fonts have to be transfered to the printer's memory before it can
print them. Combine numerous fonts on the page with a printer that
doesn't have much memory, and considerable time could be spent
transfering font after font to the printer.

I have a Laserjet II compatable Epson EPL 7200 equiped with 2 MB of RAM
that doesn't take anywhere near that long per page, even pages with
extensive graphics. After the printer's two minute warnup period text
pages eject in about a dozen seconds (I haven't actually timed it).
Pages with extensive graphics take something in the neighborhod of 1/2 a
minute to a minute. My computer has half a Gigabyte of main RAM and
there's plenty of room for a page file on my hard drive.

Your printer is from an era when DOS applications sent ASCII text
streams to printers with a few short codes to select fonts that were
often already in the printer's ROM (built in or add on cartrage).
Windows uses its own fonts, transfering the definitions of the character
shapes to the printer's RAM, THEN sending the ASCII stream. The printer
STILL has to hold enough RAM back to store the page as a bitmap, so if
you have less than 2 MB of RAM in the printer it can have memory
management issues. Most of todays inexpensive printers don't need the
RAM because Windows builds the bitmap up in real or virtual memory (the
page file) THEN transfers the bitmap, in order, to a considerably less
sophisticated circuit in the printer. Therefore, the $80 1200 (or more)
DPI color inkjet enjoys the benifits of the computer's multi GHz CPU,
while the $1,000 300 DPI vintage b&w laser printer is struggling along
with its internal 1980s technology.
 
the computer has 128mb of ram and the document that i have been printing vary
from excel worksheet and the other day i tried to print a 3 page pure text
document from word and it printed 1 page then decided to pend for about 5
mins befooe printing the next page and so on.
 
Max said:
the computer has 128mb of ram and the document that i have been printing vary
from excel worksheet and the other day i tried to print a 3 page pure text
document from word and it printed 1 page then decided to pend for about 5
mins befooe printing the next page and so on.
Click to expand...

Depending on what version of Windows you are using, only 128 MB of main
RAM could be forcing your system to use the virtual memory (swap file),
which would be acompanied by hard disk activity. As the swap file is
significantly slower than actual electronic memory, any activity that
requires its use will be significantly slowwed. If you observe a lot of
hard drive activity during printing, that could be at the root of the
slow print cycle.

Do you have access to a manual for your printer? If you do, check for
printer control panel sequences that will indicate how much memory the
printer has. A usefull amount of printer memory might require the
presence of some sort of expansion card installed in a slot on the back
of the printer. Unfortunately expansion memory cards for such old
equipment might only be available on the second hand market. Comparison
of obtaining such equipment should be carefully compared to completely
replacing the printer with an inkjet.
 
The LJ II had both serial and parallel versions. If yours is a parallel
version, try changing the parallel port mode in BIOS (and windows) to SPP
(may be also called PS2)
Windows XP defaults to ECP in most cases. ECP may be too fast for the LJ II
handshaking to work properly.
This printer was an ASCII text printer, as well as a printer with some
graphics capability. As I remember, it did not normally have enough memory
to buffer a full page of graphics at a decent resolution. Since a laser
printer is basically a page printer, this can be a problem with windows.

This printer goes back to the early 80's and such things as 386 processors,
DOS, and Apple III computers. I belive the Mac was the newest thing on the
block at the time.

When the LJ II was first available, we borrowed one from HP for
compatibility testing on some HP "Technical" systems. These actually were
very expensive mini computer based test systems made by HP, and customized
for military use by Northrop(Hallicrafters). The terminals were 8080 based
and graphics capable, with a then competitive price of about five grand. We
used the LJ II to print manuals that contained graphic illustrations of
circuit cards. The HP operating system did not specifically support the
printers graphics mode, so we had to write a program that converted the
system terminal graphics to printer ready graphics.

When we originally tried to buy the first LJII, via an account established
for such things, we ran afoul of a government thou shalt that forced us to
get a national stock number. As soon as the NSN was issued, the military
ordered a whole bunch. Naturally the agency that forced us to get the LJ
II's stock listed was the first to place an order for a whole bunch of the
printers. We had to complain, bitch, gripe and moan to finally get one.
 
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