slow network printer - help

  • Thread starter Thread starter alice
  • Start date Start date
A

alice

I have a network of WinXP PCs, one with a Brother MFC-8500 printer.
Most of the time printing works fine, but every know and then a print
job will take a very long time to print, it will take about 5 minutes
for the first page to print, then another 3-5 minutes inbetween each
page. It seems to not matter what kind of file it is, how many pages,
what time of day, nothing. It just decides to be slow now and then. The
PC that is acting as the print server is usually not doing anything
else, it's set to run windows in the most efficient mode (light on the
display settings), Performance is set to Background services, there are
no extraneous programs or files on it, I run defrag/virus/spyware
programs religiously on all the PCs, and just can't figure out what
else to do to make it go faster. It seems like it just likes to hang
now and then. Any ideas?
 
I have a network of WinXP PCs, one with a Brother MFC-8500 printer.
Most of the time printing works fine, but every know and then a print
job will take a very long time to print, it will take about 5 minutes
for the first page to print, then another 3-5 minutes inbetween each
page. It seems to not matter what kind of file it is, how many pages,
what time of day, nothing. It just decides to be slow now and then. The
PC that is acting as the print server is usually not doing anything
else, it's set to run windows in the most efficient mode (light on the
display settings), Performance is set to Background services, there are
no extraneous programs or files on it, I run defrag/virus/spyware
programs religiously on all the PCs, and just can't figure out what
else to do to make it go faster. It seems like it just likes to hang
now and then. Any ideas?
Click to expand...

I can't help much I'm afraid, the only thing I would say is that this is almost
certainly not a printer or printer driver problem.
You may get better help from one of the microsoft.public groups that specialise
in networks or servers.
Tony
 
Tony said:
I can't help much I'm afraid, the only thing I would say is that this
is almost
certainly not a printer or printer driver problem.
You may get better help from one of the microsoft.public groups that
specialise
in networks or servers.
Click to expand...

If it is a network problem, is it occurring at a time when all the other
machines at the network are busily communicating with each other and
thus hogging all the network's bandwidth?
 
Two possible considerations:

1) your print spooling space isn't large enough I would try to move the
spooler to another partition if it is still on the C drive, as that is
also where virtual memory is created by default, and perhaps other
"scratch disks" which use up hard drive space temporarily.

2) make sure nothing else is using that port when you are printer that
is resource hogging. Look at parallel, serial or USB port depending on
which you are using, If you are using an unpowered USB hub, it may be
underpowered when other things are running.

Art
 
Oops, I missed the fact this was a network printer (guess I should read
the subject titles and text more carefully). Sorry, just ignore my
suggestions, I don't think they hold true for a networked printer.

It does seem like it is probably a tied up network, however....

Art
 
Back
Top