Laserjet 4MP takes 5 minutes to print a page???

Laserjet 4MP but same problem with 4L.
Windows 7, but same problem in xp.
2.8GHZ P4 desktop computer.

Printing text is acceptable.
But when printing graphics, it can take 5 minutes
to print a page. Use with a scanner to copy
documents is excruciatingly slow.
Printer has 18MB of ram.

The driver insists on sending 25MB of data,
according to the print monitor.
But the parallel port should be able to do
this in half a minute.
Doesn't seem to be any way to use less
than 600dpi resolution.

HP website doesn't even mention win7. Claims
that vista has all the driver you'll ever get.

Is there anything I can do with the driver
or configuration to make this go a LOT faster?
I rarely need 600dpi. 150dpi would work fine
for most of what I do...just can't find a place
to change it.

Thanks, mike

Hi!

Use with a scanner to copy documents is excruciatingly slow.

Which absolutely does not come as a surprise. You're making a very tall
demand of this printer.

Specifically, the processor in the printer has to take the data coming in
from the parallel port and figure out (I believe "rasterize" is the correct
term) what to do to draw it on the drum and get it on the page.

This takes time, especially for graphics that are sent in bit-mapped form.

Printer has 18MB of ram.

You can have all the RAM you want, and the printer won't go any faster. Its
processor only goes so fast, and more memory cannot make it go faster.

Doesn't seem to be any way to use less than 600dpi resolution.

There may not be one.

HP website doesn't even mention win7. Claims that vista has all the
driver you'll ever get.

Vista drivers ought to work fine on Windows 7 for the most part, especially
for something like a printer. (This statement excludes all host-based
printers, which your LaserJet 4MP is *not*.)

If you can't lower the quality of the output (and you probably can't go
below 300 dpi anyway), you may need a printer with a much faster processor
onboard.

William

On Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:56:41 -0800, mike wrote:

But when printing graphics, it can take 5 minutes
to print a page. Use with a scanner to copy
documents is excruciatingly slow.
Printer has 18MB of ram.

This wiill depend upon the resolution you are scanning at. How are you
controlling this?

mike wrote:
Laserjet 4MP but same problem with 4L.
Windows 7, but same problem in xp.
2.8GHZ P4 desktop computer.

Printing text is acceptable.
But when printing graphics, it can take 5 minutes
to print a page. Use with a scanner to copy
documents is excruciatingly slow.
Printer has 18MB of ram.

First, scan at a lower resolution. 200 DPI black and white, for a
start. Use the PCL driver for this.

The driver insists on sending 25MB of data,
according to the print monitor.
But the parallel port should be able to do
this in half a minute.

Parallel speed depends on several things. Your parallel port may be
capable of 1M/sec, but that 17-year-old printer probably can't accept
input at that speed.

Doesn't seem to be any way to use less
than 600dpi resolution.

It's under Properties/Advanced/Printing Defaults/Advanced/Graphic/Print
Quality in the Vista driver. Double advanced!

Scanning at the same resolution as printing may be the fastest. Depends
on the the computer.

--
Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota * USA

According to HP's website this printer can print at (as almost every
laser printer I've ever owned or worked with) numerous resolutions.

In the case of the 4MP those resolutions listed a 75, 150, 3000 and
600 dpi.

Sounds like the driver you have is not offering the full capabilities.

According to the HP website with the standard internal memory (which I
believe is 1 meg) can print up to a full page of graphics at 300 dpi.
However, with MEt even higher resolution may be possible without added
memory with graphics, however, the performance may be downgraded.

I wonder if you have some bad or incompatable memory, of if it needs to
be removed and reinsterted due to bad connections.

Art

If you are interested in issues surrounding e-waste,
I invite you to enter the discussion at my blog:

http://e-trashtalk.spaces.live.com/

William R. Walsh wrote:
Hi!

Use with a scanner to copy documents is excruciatingly slow.

Which absolutely does not come as a surprise. You're making a very tall
demand of this printer.

Specifically, the processor in the printer has to take the data coming in
from the parallel port and figure out (I believe "rasterize" is the correct
term) what to do to draw it on the drum and get it on the page.

This takes time, especially for graphics that are sent in bit-mapped form.

Printer has 18MB of ram.

You can have all the RAM you want, and the printer won't go any faster. Its
processor only goes so fast, and more memory cannot make it go faster.

Doesn't seem to be any way to use less than 600dpi resolution.

There may not be one.

HP website doesn't even mention win7. Claims that vista has all the
driver you'll ever get.

Vista drivers ought to work fine on Windows 7 for the most part, especially
for something like a printer. (This statement excludes all host-based
printers, which your LaserJet 4MP is *not*.)

If you can't lower the quality of the output (and you probably can't go
below 300 dpi anyway), you may need a printer with a much faster processor
onboard.

William

Arthur Entlich wrote:
According to HP's website this printer can print at (as almost every
laser printer I've ever owned or worked with) numerous resolutions.

In the case of the 4MP those resolutions listed a 75, 150, 3000 and
600 dpi.


That was supposed to read 75, 150, *300* and 600dpi


Sounds like the driver you have is not offering the full capabilities.

According to the HP website with the standard internal memory (which I
believe is 1 meg) can print up to a full page of graphics at 300 dpi.
However, with MEt even higher resolution may be possible without added
memory with graphics, however, the performance may be downgraded.

I wonder if you have some bad or incompatable memory, of if it needs to
be removed and reinsterted due to bad connections.

Art

If you are interested in issues surrounding e-waste,
I invite you to enter the discussion at my blog:

http://e-trashtalk.spaces.live.com/

William R. Walsh wrote:
Hi!

Use with a scanner to copy documents is excruciatingly slow.

Which absolutely does not come as a surprise. You're making a very tall
demand of this printer.

Specifically, the processor in the printer has to take the data coming in
from the parallel port and figure out (I believe "rasterize" is the
correct
term) what to do to draw it on the drum and get it on the page.

This takes time, especially for graphics that are sent in bit-mapped
form.

Printer has 18MB of ram.

You can have all the RAM you want, and the printer won't go any
faster. Its
processor only goes so fast, and more memory cannot make it go faster.

Doesn't seem to be any way to use less than 600dpi resolution.

There may not be one.

HP website doesn't even mention win7. Claims that vista has all the
driver you'll ever get.

Vista drivers ought to work fine on Windows 7 for the most part,
especially
for something like a printer. (This statement excludes all host-based
printers, which your LaserJet 4MP is *not*.)

If you can't lower the quality of the output (and you probably can't go
below 300 dpi anyway), you may need a printer with a much faster
processor
onboard.

William

Forget about theory, in actual practice, many parallel ports can only
transfer as few as about 5,000 bytes per second. That is 3 MINUTES per
megabyte, roughly. At 600 dpi, you should be sending about 4 megabytes,
so up to 12 minutes might be necessary (there is no reason why you
should be sending 25 megabytes per page).

Suggestion: Get a USB printer, or get a used Laserjet 4 or 5 and the
"Jet Direct" (Ethernet) card and use Ethernet. Anything instead of a
parallel port.


mike wrote:
Laserjet 4MP but same problem with 4L.
Windows 7, but same problem in xp.
2.8GHZ P4 desktop computer.

Printing text is acceptable.
But when printing graphics, it can take 5 minutes
to print a page. Use with a scanner to copy
documents is excruciatingly slow.
Printer has 18MB of ram.

The driver insists on sending 25MB of data,
according to the print monitor.
But the parallel port should be able to do
this in half a minute.
Doesn't seem to be any way to use less
than 600dpi resolution.

HP website doesn't even mention win7. Claims
that vista has all the driver you'll ever get.

Is there anything I can do with the driver
or configuration to make this go a LOT faster?
I rarely need 600dpi. 150dpi would work fine
for most of what I do...just can't find a place
to change it.

Thanks, mike

Is that 5 min of spooling?

Do you have the printer set to print now instead of wait until spooled? (I
forget the actual language)

On Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:56:41 -0800, mike wrote:

Laserjet 4MP but same problem with 4L.
Windows 7, but same problem in xp.
2.8GHZ P4 desktop computer.

Printing text is acceptable.
But when printing graphics, it can take 5 minutes
to print a page. Use with a scanner to copy
documents is excruciatingly slow.
Printer has 18MB of ram.

The driver insists on sending 25MB of data,
according to the print monitor.
But the parallel port should be able to do
this in half a minute.
Doesn't seem to be any way to use less
than 600dpi resolution.

HP website doesn't even mention win7. Claims
that vista has all the driver you'll ever get.

Is there anything I can do with the driver
or configuration to make this go a LOT faster?
I rarely need 600dpi. 150dpi would work fine
for most of what I do...just can't find a place
to change it.

Thanks, mike


Sounds like a software problem with whatever you're using to scan and
print. Try scanning to a bunch of files and then printing those with
various apps.
You can reduce the resolution of the images using, e.g. Irfanview,
which can do a batch of files at once. It's also pretty flexible for
printing.

Also you don't say what driver you're using. If it's mostly bitmaps,
probably the PCL driver rather than the PS will be faster and require
less data to be transmitted.

Also the 4MP should come standard with an Ethernet port (on a
Jetdirect card, it can be removed though). If you have that try it
connected to your router as a network printer instead of the parallel
port.

One other factor:

On Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:56:41 -0800, mike wrote:
Printer has 18MB of ram.

The driver insists on sending 25MB of data,
according to the print monitor.


Have you put the amount of memory in the printer device settings in
Windows? Windows has no way to know otherwise that you have 18MB of
RAM and will use as default the minimum shipped (2MB + 4MB on the PS
SIMM). Which means it will send data to the printer in dribs and drabs
so as not to overflow the small amount of memory it assumes.