Laser printer speed and spooling

Question

Laser printer speed and spooling

HP LaserJet P2055dn (and previously the 6MP).
Fine when printing simple text files from Word or Quark, but so slow when a file contains illustrations. The main time is in the spooling of the file; it took 15 minutes for one particular file to spool and then print the other day - and if you ask for, say, half-a-dozen copies, then it'll take 6 x 15 minutes to do so; irritating when you need 150 double-sided asap!
Someone suggested that the problem might be that OSX does not allow printing to start on a laser printer until spooling is completed; inkjets, by comparison, start churning out their work as soon as you hit enter. Is this true?
And is there any way of speeding up the process of printing on a laser printer?

G5 2.7DP 8GB RAM, Mac OS X (10.4.11), also 10.5.8 on 2nd internal drive. And a PowerMac 7300 running OS8.6

Posted on Mar 6, 2011 7:35 AM

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Answer 1

greg sahli

Level 7

25,508 points

Mar 7, 2011 5:47 AM in response to Shaun Ferguson

I don't have that printer, so I can't test this for you...
That's a postscript printer. OS X spools pages to the printer and the printer's processor interprets and images the pages one at a time. Since it's an HP, it has HP's page description language PCL available, too. I think that may use less processor power on the printer.
As an experiment, change the driver to generic PCL 6 or PCL XL.

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Answer 2

Mar 8, 2011 2:41 AM in response to greg sahli

Tried generic driver. No difference from normal driver.
Oddly enough this morning the same page that needed 15 mins the other day only took a couple today using normal driver. So I wonder if in fact the problem is connected with memory - the printer is faster when it's just been switched on?
Will have to test this idea later.
I also have a Xerox Phaser 8500 (solid ink) for colour work; pages get to it much faster than to the Hp, even in full colour as opposed to b/w.

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Answer 3

Mar 9, 2011 1:52 AM in response to Shaun Ferguson

As an example, this morning, I ran a file with text and images.
Single copy out from hitting "print": 55 secs.
Then a run of 5: printer pause between printing of copies averaged 40 secs, and 5 copies took 3 mins 43 secs. "Spooling LPR job ...% complete" shows while job running.

(That is for b/w illustrations; obviously for printing on a b/w laser original illustrations in colour have to be changed to b/w; early on I discovered that colour files would take even longer - about a 90secs between copies.)

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Answer 4

greg sahli

Level 7

25,508 points

Mar 9, 2011 4:40 AM in response to Shaun Ferguson

The printer has user-installable RAM. I'm wondering if
a) there's a problem with the RAM (like the RAM is unplugged),
or b) the driver is not setup to use the correct amount of RAM (affects the speed of spooling).

Go to Print & Fax-->Print tab-->Options & Supplies--Driver tab to see if you can set the RAM (memory) size.
You should be able to find out memory amount by printing a startup/test page on the printer.

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Answer 5

Apr 1, 2011 1:47 PM in response to greg sahli

No problem with RAM - all working fine.
It rather looks as if the printer is not releasing the RAM after use. (Does that make sense?) If there is a considerable delay and I cancel the job and switch the printer off, then on again, then the print job takes less time.

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Answer 6

greg sahli

Level 7

25,508 points

Apr 1, 2011 3:27 PM in response to Shaun Ferguson

I just noticed you used the IP > LPD protocol -- you should try IP > HP Jetdirect. That protocol is known to be the optimum for HPs.

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Answer 7

Apr 5, 2011 2:50 AM in response to greg sahli

Tried that - gave up after three minutes had passed when waiting for it to print a double-sided page with pictures from QuarkXpress. It printed the same pages single-sided quite quickly.

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Answer 8

greg sahli

Level 7

25,508 points

Apr 5, 2011 6:09 AM in response to Shaun Ferguson

Sorry - I'm out of airspeed and ideas.

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Answer 9

LilyLC

Level 4

2,834 points

Apr 5, 2011 12:10 PM in response to Shaun Ferguson

Shaun Ferguson wrote:
Fine when printing simple text files from Word or Quark, but so slow when a file contains illustrations.
And is there any way of speeding up the process of printing on a laser printer?

The resolution of your illustrations make a tremendous difference. What format, i.e., jpg, tif, pdf etc? The resolution of the output also makes a difference. Before printing in Quark XPress, check the Device: PPD and Resolution; Color: Grayscale; Pictures: if your illustration documents are Tiff documents, try UNchecking the box next to Full Resolution Tiff Output. Also in the Pictures section: you might try changing the Output to Low Resolution.

Also consider if a firmware update might help. See HP LaserJet P2055dn Drivers and Software

Note: I have an old HP LaserJet 4MV with one-tenth of the memory of the LJ P2055 and the speed of the print outs and release of memory afterwards is fine (as a PostScript 2 device and especially in comparison with a Brother MFC that is 15 years younger and a 1-year-old Epson inkjet printer.)

HTH

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Answer 10

LilyLC

Level 4

2,834 points

Apr 5, 2011 12:16 PM in response to Shaun Ferguson

Shaun Ferguson wrote:
As an example, this morning, I ran a file with text and images.
Single copy out from hitting "print": 55 secs.
Then a run of 5: printer pause between printing of copies averaged 40 secs, and 5 copies took 3 mins 43 secs. "Spooling LPR job ...% complete" shows while job running.

Which application? In the print window, be sure the the box next to Collated is UNchecked.

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Answer 11

Apr 6, 2011 1:14 AM in response to LilyLC

Application QuarkXpress.
Unchecking the collate box improves the speed for single-sided, thank you - no pause between copies. But for the same double-sided I gave up at 3 minutes.

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Answer 12

Apr 6, 2011 2:39 AM in response to Shaun Ferguson

Just bought an HP P2055dn to replace a HP 2300dn - the Jet Direct card died, so 2300 now connected as a local shared printer to a G4 Quicksilver running 10.4.11.

Printing pdfs from my iMac G5 10.5.8 is incredibly slow. Just ran a test printing page 1 of a patent. Spool time 14.5 minutes.

Same file printing to the old HP 2300 as shared printer connected to ancient QS 20 secs.
Same file printed from the G4 QS to HP 2055dn 20 secs.
Same file printed from a Sony Vaio Windows 7 20 secs.

So what is it with my G5 10.5.8 installation? Doesn't make sense.

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Answer 13

LilyLC

Level 4

2,834 points

Apr 6, 2011 11:44 AM in response to Shaun Ferguson

HP User Forum: the last post in the thread by Inkipolony. Based on that, consider trying the driver for the P2015dn that was included with OS 10.5. The P2015 series of drivers was updated and included in the update package: HP Printer Driver Update v1.1.1 that should show up using Software Update from the Apple menu. If the problem persists, try the Gutenprint drivers.

One more thing: If you have not already done so, consider running Disk Repair using Disk Utility from your OS Install Disc to check your hard disk. (Any wee deviation from the normal can cause havoc.) Afterward, reboot, go to Utilities folder, launch Disk Utility and then Repair Disk Permissions.

HTH

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Answer 14

LilyLC

Level 4

2,834 points

Apr 6, 2011 11:51 AM in response to histon_mike

Welcome to Apple Discussions, Mike!

Although some people do not think the following is necessary but I find it works...that is to reboot the computer and Repair Disk Permissions after installing print drivers.

Also, see my recent response to Shaun Ferguson.

HTH

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Answer 15

Apr 7, 2011 2:28 AM in response to LilyLC

Thanks for your suggestions. I've been a Mac user almost exclusively since 1988, and this is the first time I've needed to post on the forums!

Repair permissions from install disc - no difference
Driver for HP 2015 series - no difference
Updated HP drivers with System Update and rebooted/repaired permissions - no difference

I'll try other drivers next, but in the meantime I have a living to earn ;o)

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