Topic: Really bizarre printing problem!

[gbentley]

Scenario: 1 x up to date SME | 6 x XP Clients
Description: Non consistent print output from only 2 of 6 XP boxes

The story: For quite some time I have had an Epson FX890 Dot matrix printer hooked up to the SME box and a printer spool set up as \\Server\plain [we print 3 part invoice paper on a tractor feed] The same printer driver was installed on each XP box and everything is rosey.

Some time later the manager wants to move the Switches / Phone System / Alarm / Server to a purpose built comms room exactly above the location of the existing server / switch location. All the cabling / moving work etc is complete and the last thing to do is move the server. Problem is that the FX890 was on  the parallel port and the lead wasnt going to be long enough and besides the connector too big to go in the trunking [as well as PP having signal limits - think its 5 metres?]

So simple solution us an active USB lead plus a standard USB printer lead.

So, I removed the print spool for the parallel ports on the SME and added one for the USB port but using the same printer name [ie \\Server\plain] I then fed through and hooked up a 5m USB repeater lead and a 5m USB printer lead.

Now, heres the odd bit. 4 out of 6 XP boxes print exactly as before, same size font and same form length. But two of them print in a tiny font and a longer form length ??? Huh? BEar in mind they all worked perfectly before changing to USB print spooling on the server.

I tried uninstalling / reinstalling the driver and rebooting XP. I tried rebooting the server. I tried downloading the latest printer driver and installing that. I ran out of things to try. Doesnt make sense.

Before I left I used Windows printer sharing to share one fo the printer drivers on a working XP box and added that as a printer on one of the non working ones - this now works???

Short of deleting the spool and re-creating it with a completely different name [maybe \\Server\FX890] I dont know what else left to try. It just doesnt add up?

Anyone who has any clues as to what could cause this type of inconsistency I'd love to hear from you!

Thanks!








 

[piran]

...same four all the time? If so the tiny font and
US? form length could be the default invoked after
some operational parameter being failed.

...when all printing concurrently? Loading maxes
out and defaults invoked.

...particular time slot of working day? Network busy
and defaults invoked.

...operational or bandwidth limit for the USB stuff?

Try a doc file that is printing OK from one
box physically from another box apparently
printing wacky.

Try lindy.co.uk for a convertor. They do some
that use CAT5 to long line stuff. Not sure if one
of them does PP.

[gbentley]

The four working ones all worked straight away and continue to work perfectly as they did before.
All printer drivers installed in exactly the same way and the same driver. No settings changed following install.
Print outs are generally a short burst of say 4-6 sheets then stop for an hour and only from one box at a time.

Ethernet to PP Print Server box seems a bit OTT considering 4/6 are perfect.

[piran]

Four IPs allocated OK... the other two 'out of range'?

[Jáder]

Try replace computer´s position... so you´ll figure out if it´s a location problem or a computer problem.

Are the XP computer at EXACT SAME patch level (eg winXPsp3) or those two problematic are in sp2 ?

Are the forms printed on graphical mode or text mode ?
If in the graphical mode (the slow one, emulating a laser/inkjet printer), that could be a missing font on 2x XP.

Verify the defaults for printer for those 2 computers and compare them with others. Tip: print a working config page and go to non-working to match... one by one... slowly! It´s easy to miss a little detail in cases like this.