z3100 prints slowly in spool mode why?

[dave mason]

We are having the same problem whether we print to it USB or as a network printer. We are printing out of CS2 and when we use the windows spooler option it slows way down. I saw one other post about this and i am having the same problem. The solve in the other post was not relevant so I'm going to try again. If we print "directly to the printer" it prints at normal speed but ties up all of the resources in CS2 and we have to wait for the print to finish before we can open another file and send it. If we spool it sends all of the data, we print large files 20x30 at 300 dpi, but the printer prints a couple of lines then the heads stop either right or left and do the dance for a couple of seconds then repeats the cycle. It must have to do with the cpu we are using, something about the way it sends the data. If we cancel a job that is spooled it begins to print normal as it backs out of the job. So somehow the data is "crashing into itself" when we are spooling. It acts like it can't handle all of the data that windows is handing it out of the spooler. When it is in print direct mode windows seems to only hand it a couple of megs at a time. We are a pro lab and need to get some production off this device any help would be appreciated. We are also trying out Ergo's rip, but are having some color issues. It handles the files great though and prints like the wind, if only i could get the color right. Oh yeah, I also have chosen our peak demand season to work on this.....what a genius.....duh. Thanks, Dave Mason  McKenna Pro Imaging  dmason@mckennapro.com 319-290-2550

[rdonson]

A couple of thoughts, Dave.

1) Don't print from Photoshop - for a paltry sum compared to Ergosoft get Qimage

2) Tell us about the computer you're using.
     - what does the hardware look like?  Processor?  RAM? disk drives?
     - what OS?

[dave mason]

One of my employees got it working last night....yeah Thanksgiving night.....no I did not ask him to come in. Yes, he deserves a raise! Here's what he did:

1)       I moved the spooling directory from the c\\WINDOWS\System32\spool\PRINTERS\ to d:\z3100

2)       In the printer properties, I disabled bidirectional support

3)       Also in the printer properties, I changed from print direct to spool prints with the option wait till finished before printing.

4)       **Disabled memory manager** in the print driver

5)       Printing via usb instead of the network – supposedly via usb spools the image to the built-in hard drive before printing vs. sending pieces of data at a time over the network.

It now prints normally and CS2 resources are freed up. We have struggled with Ergosoft to say the least. Their support is great but wow we have had a tough time with the rip and I am embarrassed to call them again. The profiling process is tricking, especially setting ink limits which seems to more magic than science. We had a beautiful profile working then all of sudden our color went south...light and yellow. I re linearized the printer and validated that we were still applying the correct profile and i still have the same results. I don't get it. Reading 1400 patches and starting over is a time consuming process and we really don't have that option this time of year. I will investigate Qimage.

[alan a]

One of my employees got it working last night....yeah Thanksgiving night.....no I did not ask him to come in. Yes, he deserves a raise!

I've also had this problem, so thanks very much for your solution.  I also wonder if this might have something to do with how much memory is being used by CS3 or CS4.  An Adobe tech guy told me to turn up the memory resources for CS4 to 80%.  (I have four gigs of ram and am using Vista 32.)  I suddenly begain having spooler problems again.  So I turned the CS4 memory resources down to 50% and the spooler worked fine and stopped failing.  I don't know if that is a coincidence or not.  It doesn't make any sense, since the spooler uses drive space, and not ram.  But in my case the spooler started collapsing shortly after turning up CS4 to 80% and stopped when I turned it down to 50%.

Previous threads also include information on how to turn the spooler service on and off, and how to clear out the printer buffer, if you continue to have problems.  

The Microsoft forums are filled with page after page on the problem of the spooler collapsing.  It happens with a wide range of printers, and it is not at all clear what causes it.  It appears to be an issue with both XP and Vista, but worse with Vista.  

You'd think Microsoft would devote the resources to fixing the problem, so we can at least do something as simple as print.  This is such a widespread problem with windows that it should be the subject of a future Mac TV advertisement.  

The PC character could be shown drawing with crayons, and explain that this is his method of printing because he hasn't been able to raise enough money from bake sales to fix the printing problems of Vista.

[dave mason]

Here's the latest. Installed Qimage and are using it along with the APS from HP and custom profiles we created for our canvas paper. Oh my word, it is awesome. I really don't get it, we have the best quality we have produced to date and without the expensive Ergo solution, I am dumbfounded. It prints easily with no hiccups and an easy normal print cancellation routine which does not send the HP into reboot mode (45 minutes). Thank you for suggesting it, wow. I can't believe it is a $90 solution, there is hope for this digital world afterall!!!!

[rdonson]

I'm glad that Qimage is working out for you, Dave.  There are a lot of us who are very thankful to Mike Chaney for Qimage.  Qimage and APS is my primary way of printing.  I print from Lightroom 2.1 as well from time to time but I can't remember the last time I printed from PS.

I haven't heard of too many people pleased with how the traditional RIPs work with the latest generation of printers.