Printing eating 100% Kernel mode CPU for SMALL jobs

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jack Meyhoff
  • Start date Start date
J

Jack Meyhoff

Hi,

I have Windows 2000 installed on this machine and when printing (I have
tried all printing modes of Normal, BiDirectional, EPP and ECP in the bios).
When printing even the smallest job (simple text or test page) the SYSTEM
process eats 99% CPU in kernel mode and is just not printing reliabily,
sometimes a reboot causes the job to print. This is Windows 2000 with
Service Pack 4, Intel P800 and a LExmark z31 printer and latest drivers.

Anybody got ideas if this is a known bug (and thus the KB article number?)
or any suggestions on how to get it to work reliabily (without upgrading to
a new machine - its not mine).

Thanks
 
Hi

It is quite possible that it is a driver problem.
Try removing the driver completely and print to a different printer and
check if the CPU usage still shoots up.

Shilpa Sinha
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
 
Done that, with 2 different printers. Same problem. Works fine with 98 etc
but never reliably on 2000 for some reason.


Shilpa Sinha said:
Hi

It is quite possible that it is a driver problem.
Try removing the driver completely and print to a different printer and
check if the CPU usage still shoots up.

Shilpa Sinha
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
Click to expand...
rights.
 
Sinha's right about the drivers. Here are a few other
areas too. Don't have all the answers but here's some
follow through items.

Check the amount of free disk space on the C drive, low
disk space may be the culprit. Also check the windows
page file and supersize it as needed.

Ran into this with a bunch of HP 4600 color printers last
month. I found the fix was deleting the drivers and
reinstalling them using the native PCL6 flavor drivers
instead of the PS drivers. Consider using the native
printer protocol.

Check the firmware on the Lexmark. It may need a flash.

If you're running through a printserver, replace its
drivers too. If your printer port is a TCPIP port instead
of the standard LPT port, delete the TCPIP port and
reinstall it.

If that doesn't do it, try a different printer cable. Bad
pins and too-long-of-a-cable-run can throw drag things.

Lastly, HP once said that the printers are optimized for
text at the expense of graphics. Sad but very true.
Adding printer RAM makes a big difference. If you're
banging out graphics, there's a breed of graphics
accelerator cards that insert into printers. They'll set
your printer on light speed.

Keeper of 120 printers,
Brian
 
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