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Author Topic: z3100 slow printing again  (Read 5629 times)

Charles Gast

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z3100 slow printing again
« on: July 12, 2007, 09:46:14 am »

The printer with luster paper on 11x17 at 300 dpi best quality and extra passes prints right along without stopping the heads between passes even once. It takes it about 5 minutes. When I print a 24x36 inch from roll using the same paper at 300 dpi even with extra passes turned off it stops every one or two passes and the head goes off to the side and jerks back and forth.  The network usage is only about 3% and only sends data at each pass and stops sending between passes. I noticed the network traffic indicates the printer only gets a chunk of data at each pass. It does not send the entire file to the printer at the start as I thought it did. I don't think that is what the problem is anyway. The network traffic looks the same with either print size. It starts off telling me on the printer display the 24x36 will take about 45 minutes then it ends up taking an hour and a half.
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rdonson

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z3100 slow printing again
« Reply #1 on: July 12, 2007, 09:52:15 am »

Charles, it sounds like the printer trying to clean a head or a Windoze spool file configuration problem.
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Regards,
Ron

Charles Gast

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z3100 slow printing again
« Reply #2 on: July 12, 2007, 11:24:29 am »

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Charles, it sounds like the printer trying to clean a head or a Windoze spool file configuration problem.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=127796\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I'm thinking its not the head cleaning due to the normal printing on 11x17. When the heads needed cleaning it printed this way on all paper types and sizes.

Is there any way to correct windoze print spool problems such as config?
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rdonson

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z3100 slow printing again
« Reply #3 on: July 12, 2007, 12:26:33 pm »

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I'm thinking its not the head cleaning due to the normal printing on 11x17. When the heads needed cleaning it printed this way on all paper types and sizes.

Is there any way to correct windoze print spool problems such as config?
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Charles, I use Qimage and Mike Chaney has outlined some of the interactions and options with the Windows print spooler and Qimage.  He's done this in his documentation on the Qimage product and in this [a href=\"http://www.steves-digicams.com/techcorner/august_2006.html]article.[/url]

This information isn't just applicable to Qimage.
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Regards,
Ron

Charles Gast

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z3100 slow printing again
« Reply #4 on: July 12, 2007, 01:12:08 pm »

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Charles, I use Qimage and Mike Chaney has outlined some of the interactions and options with the Windows print spooler and Qimage.  He's done this in his documentation on the Qimage product and in this article.

This information isn't just applicable to Qimage.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=127832\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Thanks for the info.  I am using advanced and tech support at HP said to check the box next to "start printing after the last page is spooled" so that all data would go to the printers hard drive before it starts printing to take the network out of the picture.  Problem is that it is still just sending enough data for each pass and stopping at each pass. humbug
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Charles Gast

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z3100 slow printing again
« Reply #5 on: July 12, 2007, 01:27:19 pm »

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Thanks for the info.  I am using advanced and tech support at HP said to check the box next to "start printing after the last page is spooled" so that all data would go to the printers hard drive before it starts printing to take the network out of the picture.  Problem is that it is still just sending enough data for each pass and stopping at each pass. humbug
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=127836\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Oh. Now HP tech support is telling me that "24x36 inch prints take longer to print than 11x17 inch prints".  Gee thanks for the enlightenment.  This even though I told them the 90 minute print time it now takes used to take about 25 minutes for the same paper/quality.  They just don't know whats wrong.  We're in the same boat as they say.
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Charles Gast

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z3100 slow printing again
« Reply #6 on: July 12, 2007, 08:51:07 pm »

I am seeing now that the hard drives are continuously hammering away in the computer when these 24x36 inch prints are being printed.  I also noticed that by the time a print is just past halfway finished the spool service has racked up 3,700,000 page faults and counting.
The HP device host is also racking up 415,000 page faults and counting.
It looks like the driver and the spooler are not getting along somehow.
Problem is I'm stuck with fixing it here. When I call tech support they assume I haven't profiled the papers etc.  I'm waiting for them to ask if I remembered to plug in the printer before starting the job  
It works fine on smaller prints.
I am running with 4gb of ram and only 755k of ram is in use during this operation.
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Charles Gast

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z3100 slow printing again
« Reply #7 on: July 12, 2007, 10:36:38 pm »

I uninstalled everything HP related. Switched from ethernet to usb connection and re-installed it all.
It still hammers away at the C drive (where the spooler resides) continuously while slowly printing. I now know that when the head is off to the side doing its little dance it is just waiting for the computer to send another load of data for the next pass. With all the ram available and the C drive consisting of a Raid 10 of 320 scsi drives there has to be something wrong when the C drive hammers away continuously for over an hour to print a 230mb file.  I know in the past I have printed files of the same size without this problem.
I know another poster here had a similar problem a while back so I am wondering if I am now seeing the same issue
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Jim Cole

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z3100 slow printing again
« Reply #8 on: July 12, 2007, 11:11:44 pm »

Charles,

I regularly send 300-500 MB files to my 44" Z3100 and it takes just a couple of minutes to spool on my LAN connection. I'm on Windows XP Pro SP2 with a Raid 5 - three disk main drive and a separate raptor drive each for my Window page file and Photoshop scratch disk.

I have experienced none of these slow downs. I'm sorry you are having to deal with this, but I'm not sure it's related to the Z3100.

I don't have any real suggestions for you, but just wanted to let you know that all of us users are not experiencing this issue.

Good luck,

Jim
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Jim Cole
Flagstaff, AZ www.jimcolephoto.

Charles Gast

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z3100 slow printing again
« Reply #9 on: July 13, 2007, 07:13:05 am »

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Charles,

I regularly send 300-500 MB files to my 44" Z3100 and it takes just a couple of minutes to spool on my LAN connection. I'm on Windows XP Pro SP2 with a Raid 5 - three disk main drive and a separate raptor drive each for my Window page file and Photoshop scratch disk.

I have experienced none of these slow downs. I'm sorry you are having to deal with this, but I'm not sure it's related to the Z3100.

I don't have any real suggestions for you, but just wanted to let you know that all of us users are not experiencing this issue.

Good luck,

Jim
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=127941\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I have heard it mentioned but I understand it isn't happening to everyone or it would be the only topic here.
It never spools over the lan to the printer hard drive. A tech rep at HP said to go into the advanced tab for the printers and faxes and check "start printing after last page is spooled" and that did not change the way it prints.  When printing an 11x17 it prints without pausing but by watching the network traffic it is only sending a chunk of data with each pass. It does not send all of the data to the printer up front the way it is supposed to.
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Charles Gast

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z3100 slow printing again
« Reply #10 on: July 13, 2007, 10:04:51 am »

Finally

I started trying *anything*.  I put it back on ethernet so I could watch data traffic then I disabled the "memory manager" under the advanced tab of the driver. It was set to enabled by default.
Now it prints with only occaisonal pauses and will complete the print in a little over 20 minutes as expected. This was yet another bug introduced by the new drivers  installed with the latest firmware.   It still does not send all the data to the printer up front but it is sending more data faster now and this was the fix
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ratovan

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z3100 slow printing again
« Reply #11 on: July 15, 2007, 12:30:56 pm »

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The printer with luster paper on 11x17 at 300 dpi best quality and extra passes prints right along without stopping the heads between passes even once. It takes it about 5 minutes. When I print a 24x36 inch from roll using the same paper at 300 dpi even with extra passes turned off it stops every one or two passes and the head goes off to the side and jerks back and forth.  The network usage is only about 3% and only sends data at each pass and stops sending between passes. I noticed the network traffic indicates the printer only gets a chunk of data at each pass. It does not send the entire file to the printer at the start as I thought it did. I don't think that is what the problem is anyway. The network traffic looks the same with either print size. It starts off telling me on the printer display the 24x36 will take about 45 minutes then it ends up taking an hour and a half.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=127795\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Hi Charles
Im not sure if this helps but when I use absolute colormetric it has a break for every turn (seem like alot of calculation when mixing all the colours but when I get back to perceptual it takes 5 min for a1 300dpi on fine art paper.

Regards
Stein
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Charles Gast

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z3100 slow printing again
« Reply #12 on: July 16, 2007, 08:43:10 am »

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Hi Charles
Im not sure if this helps but when I use absolute colormetric it has a break for every turn (seem like alot of calculation when mixing all the colours but when I get back to perceptual it takes 5 min for a1 300dpi on fine art paper.

Regards
Stein
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=128304\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

The only thing I have been using is relative colorimetric since it is supposed to do a good job of approximating out of gamuts when encountered.

The fix was disabling the  Memory Manager .  I don't know what it is supposed to do but it made things worse in a big way so its disabled now and the printer works well.
I remember another poster a month or two back with the same slow printing and head cleaning did not help so I wonder if the memory manager was his problem too?

I don' t know if I can call HP tech support any more.  They kept assuming I was an idiot on this problem.  Kept telling me things like "you need to profile your papers when they are not HP"  and "download the latest profiles from our website" and of course " larger prints take longer to print than small ones".  I ended up hanging up on the last one and found the solution on my own since they were far more clueless than I was on how to resolve the problem with my "plotter"
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NedOtter

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z3100 slow printing again
« Reply #13 on: July 19, 2007, 01:18:06 am »

Charles - I have experienced the same slow down as you, with both 24" and 44" paper (Satin Professional, in both cases).

I am using the latest firmware and drivers on a Windows XP SP2 box, and the only thing that makes any difference for me is that when printing landscape, it crawls as you describe, but when I flip the dimensions of the paper and then print the same image in portrait, it prints without interruption.

Good luck --

Ned Otter
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