1220C loading down computer's CPU

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I have an HP 1220c that drives the CPU to 100% while printing. I need to
reduce the impact on the computer while printing because it interferes with
other things that the user is trying to do. I am looking for some setup
change that would help. I could get a faster printer, but I am worried that
the printer still would be limited by the CPU and not improve the situation.
I know the 1220c is not a WinPrinter, but I do not know if more modern
printers do more of the work in the printer rather than in the computer.

The computer is a 1.5GHz P4 with 768MB RAM and 1150MB of VM. The 1220c is
connected on LPT1 (ECP). The problem is during the spooler to printer phase,
not the program to spooler phase. I watched with perfmon and saw the 100%
CPU during most of the spooler to printer time. I saw almost no paging and
little disk activity. The CPU is flat at 100% (with little dips at page
breaks) for combination text/photo printed from Adobe Acrobat. The CPU
sawtooths between 90% and 100% for text printed from Word.

I have already bumped RAM from 256 to 768 and dropped the Print Server
(Print Spooler service) CPU priority. This reduced the impact on the user
from something that was much worse.

Would moving the printer from the ECP port to a USB port help?

Would a newer color printer reduce the load on the computer's CPU?

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Joe M
 
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On the seventh day, JoeM wrote...

> The computer is a 1.5GHz P4 with 768MB RAM and 1150MB of VM. The 1220c is
> connected on LPT1 (ECP). The problem is during the spooler to printer phase,
> not the program to spooler phase. I watched with perfmon and saw the 100%
> CPU during most of the spooler to printer time. I saw almost no paging and
> little disk activity. The CPU is flat at 100% (with little dips at page
> breaks) for combination text/photo printed from Adobe Acrobat. The CPU
> sawtooths between 90% and 100% for text printed from Word.
>
> I have already bumped RAM from 256 to 768 and dropped the Print Server
> (Print Spooler service) CPU priority. This reduced the impact on the user
> from something that was much worse.
>
> Would moving the printer from the ECP port to a USB port help?
>
> Would a newer color printer reduce the load on the computer's CPU?

Joe,

you're saying you're printing PDF files. If the CPU hogging just occurs
then, there is no other help available, unfortunately, than to buy a
postscript capable printer. Even worse, those printers are still pretty
expensive.

If I were you I'd go for a ColorLaserJet 3700 or similar with installed PS
option. Aside from the hefty price tag, you may use the printer in the
network for more than one user.

--
mit freundlichen Grüßen/with kind regards
Christian Dürrhauer, Institute of Geography, FU Berlin

100,000 lemmings can't be wrong.
 
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Archived from groups: comp.sys.hp.hardware (More info?)

I agree 100%. Printing a complicated color PDF is the culprit. There have been
long-standing issues printing PDFs to HP PCL printers. Adobe's web site has
FAQs on printing. The PCL image that goes to the 1220c is almost entirely a
color bitmap in the case of photos. There's no other way to print it except to
slog all the bits through the parallel port.

Some of the high CPU use is also attributable to managing the parallel port. No
guarantees, but I would bet that CPU usage would drop substantially if the 1220c
was attached to a JetDirect card and printing done via the "network".
Ethernet's packetized overhead is a lot less than parallel port ECP overhead.

.... Ben Myers

On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 12:56:10 +0100, Christian =?ISO-8859-1?Q?D=FCrrhauer?=
<cduerr@geog.fu-berlin.de> wrote:

>On the seventh day, JoeM wrote...
>
>> The computer is a 1.5GHz P4 with 768MB RAM and 1150MB of VM. The 1220c is
>> connected on LPT1 (ECP). The problem is during the spooler to printer phase,
>> not the program to spooler phase. I watched with perfmon and saw the 100%
>> CPU during most of the spooler to printer time. I saw almost no paging and
>> little disk activity. The CPU is flat at 100% (with little dips at page
>> breaks) for combination text/photo printed from Adobe Acrobat. The CPU
>> sawtooths between 90% and 100% for text printed from Word.
>>
>> I have already bumped RAM from 256 to 768 and dropped the Print Server
>> (Print Spooler service) CPU priority. This reduced the impact on the user
>> from something that was much worse.
>>
>> Would moving the printer from the ECP port to a USB port help?
>>
>> Would a newer color printer reduce the load on the computer's CPU?
>
>Joe,
>
>you're saying you're printing PDF files. If the CPU hogging just occurs
>then, there is no other help available, unfortunately, than to buy a
>postscript capable printer. Even worse, those printers are still pretty
>expensive.
>
>If I were you I'd go for a ColorLaserJet 3700 or similar with installed PS
>option. Aside from the hefty price tag, you may use the printer in the
>network for more than one user.
>
>--
>mit freundlichen Grüßen/with kind regards
>Christian Dürrhauer, Institute of Geography, FU Berlin
>
>100,000 lemmings can't be wrong.
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: comp.sys.hp.hardware (More info?)

On the seventh day, ben_myers_spam_me_not wrote...

> I agree 100%. Printing a complicated color PDF is the culprit. There have been
> long-standing issues printing PDFs to HP PCL printers. Adobe's web site has
> FAQs on printing. The PCL image that goes to the 1220c is almost entirely a
> color bitmap in the case of photos. There's no other way to print it except to
> slog all the bits through the parallel port.
>
> Some of the high CPU use is also attributable to managing the parallel port. No
> guarantees, but I would bet that CPU usage would drop substantially if the 1220c
> was attached to a JetDirect card and printing done via the "network".

I'm not sure whether a JetDirect print server for the DeskJet 1220C would
imporve CPU hogging that much. After all, it's the PDF that's causing the
troubles.

> Ethernet's packetized overhead is a lot less than parallel port ECP overhead.

AFAIK, ethernet's overhead is larger than parallel. Ethernet is faster
because of its bandwith, though.

If I were the OP, I'd set up an old linux machine with CUPS (Pentium
> 166MHz, >48MB) and use it as printserver and spooler in a network. Once
the workstation has spooled its job (this should happen pretty fast), the
workstation is available for working.

Just an idea.

--
mit freundlichen Grüßen/with kind regards
Christian Dürrhauer, Institute of Geography, FU Berlin

100,000 lemmings can't be wrong.
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: comp.sys.hp.hardware (More info?)

> Christian Dürrhauer <cduerr@geog.fu-berlin.de> wrote:

> I'm not sure whether a JetDirect print server for the
> DeskJet 1220C would imporve CPU hogging that much.

Doubtful. I have J6042A LIO server in my cp1700d, and
I also see occasional PDF renders taking a horrific
amount of time for no apparent reason.

> After all, it's the PDF that's causing the troubles.

It's the PDF to PCL rendering that's the problem.

PDF is essentially device-independent PostScript, and
in case anyone is tempted, upgrading the 1220C to
the 1220Cps (PostScript) probably wouldn't help either,
as the PS rendering is host RIP. It would just move the
processing load from Adobe host code (Acrobat print) to
HP host code (the RIP).

There's also a cp1700ps, but it's also host RIP.
Had it been firmware-based, I would have bought it.

--
Regards, Bob Niland mailto:name@ispname.tld
http://www.access-one.com/rjn email4rjn AT yahoo DOT com
NOT speaking for any employer, client or Internet Service Provider.
 
G

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.hp.hardware (More info?)

Is the PostScript rendering for the 1220Cps strictly host-based RIP or is it
shared between the host and the PostScript firmware module installed in the
printer? I ask because I have a client looking for a replacement like a 1700ps
(same question about RIP vs firmware) and we may be driven to a much more
expensive 11x17 PostScript color laser printer to get decent color proofs.

Of course, one way to mitigate all this slowness is to throw a dual-processor
3+GHz high end Pentium 4 workstation with DDR2 memory at the problem. My client
is also thinking along those lines, too... Ben Myers

On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 10:50:09 -0600, Bob Niland <email4rjn@yahoo.com> wrote:

>> Christian Dürrhauer <cduerr@geog.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
>
>> I'm not sure whether a JetDirect print server for the
>> DeskJet 1220C would imporve CPU hogging that much.
>
>Doubtful. I have J6042A LIO server in my cp1700d, and
>I also see occasional PDF renders taking a horrific
>amount of time for no apparent reason.
>
>> After all, it's the PDF that's causing the troubles.
>
>It's the PDF to PCL rendering that's the problem.
>
>PDF is essentially device-independent PostScript, and
>in case anyone is tempted, upgrading the 1220C to
>the 1220Cps (PostScript) probably wouldn't help either,
>as the PS rendering is host RIP. It would just move the
>processing load from Adobe host code (Acrobat print) to
>HP host code (the RIP).
>
>There's also a cp1700ps, but it's also host RIP.
>Had it been firmware-based, I would have bought it.
>
>--
>Regards, Bob Niland mailto:name@ispname.tld
>http://www.access-one.com/rjn email4rjn AT yahoo DOT com
>NOT speaking for any employer, client or Internet Service Provider.
 
G

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.hp.hardware (More info?)

I like the concept of using a Linux box with CUPS. Old Pentium-class boxes are
a dime a dozen. My only question is whether or not this approach would offload
the PDF to PCL rendering to the Linux machine? ... Ben Myers

On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 17:38:56 +0100, Christian =?ISO-8859-1?Q?D=FCrrhauer?=
<cduerr@geog.fu-berlin.de> wrote:

>On the seventh day, ben_myers_spam_me_not wrote...
>
>> I agree 100%. Printing a complicated color PDF is the culprit. There have been
>> long-standing issues printing PDFs to HP PCL printers. Adobe's web site has
>> FAQs on printing. The PCL image that goes to the 1220c is almost entirely a
>> color bitmap in the case of photos. There's no other way to print it except to
>> slog all the bits through the parallel port.
>>
>> Some of the high CPU use is also attributable to managing the parallel port. No
>> guarantees, but I would bet that CPU usage would drop substantially if the 1220c
>> was attached to a JetDirect card and printing done via the "network".
>
>I'm not sure whether a JetDirect print server for the DeskJet 1220C would
>imporve CPU hogging that much. After all, it's the PDF that's causing the
>troubles.
>
>> Ethernet's packetized overhead is a lot less than parallel port ECP overhead.
>
>AFAIK, ethernet's overhead is larger than parallel. Ethernet is faster
>because of its bandwith, though.
>
>If I were the OP, I'd set up an old linux machine with CUPS (Pentium
>> 166MHz, >48MB) and use it as printserver and spooler in a network. Once
>the workstation has spooled its job (this should happen pretty fast), the
>workstation is available for working.
>
>Just an idea.
>
>--
>mit freundlichen Grüßen/with kind regards
>Christian Dürrhauer, Institute of Geography, FU Berlin
>
>100,000 lemmings can't be wrong.
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: comp.sys.hp.hardware (More info?)

> GMT, ben_myers_spam_me_not <@ charter.net> wrote:

> Is the PostScript rendering for the 1220Cps strictly
> host-based RIP or is it shared between the host and
> the PostScript firmware module installed in the
> printer?

Beats me. I was seriously considering the 1220C just
as the cp1700 was intro'd, and dismissed both "ps"
models on account of "host RIP". So I didn't look
deeply into how the RIP was implemented.

In my view, if you can't do a DOS
COPY /B PRNTFILE.PS > LPT1:
then it isn't a PostScript printer.

I have an 11-year-old laser printer with resident
PCL and PS, which still runs like a champ. The
resident PS has been a lifesaver when some document
won't render properly (or at all) in PCL (and vice
versa). However, had it been a host RIP PS, I would
have been out of luck by Windows 98, as any vendor
software support was terminated with Win95.

>> It's the PDF to PCL rendering that's the problem.

Despite my earlier simplification, it strikes me as
unlikely that either host RIP is merely performing
a generic PCL rendering. It's more likely doing
something more efficient, and the output data
structure could be PCL raster format, IPCL, some
undocumented PCL extension, or even something close
to raw nozzle data ...

.... except when printing to file, in which case the
structure is presumably PS.

> ... we may be driven to a much more expensive 11x17
> PostScript color laser printer to get decent color
> proofs.

That's my impression of low-end medium-format printers.
The makers may be deliberately omitting firmware PS
and professional color management in order to bump
you up to a pricier product.

Of course, resident RIP requires generous amounts of
RAM for rasterizing the arbitrary vectors of PS, and
that is a real, if diminishing barrier to resident
hi-res PS in printers.

--
Regards, Bob Niland mailto:name@ispname.tld
http://www.access-one.com/rjn email4rjn AT yahoo DOT com
NOT speaking for any employer, client or Internet Service Provider.