Browsing slooooows down when printing

[frankpel]

Why is it that my puter slows down when browsing the internet if I am printing in the background? If I am printing out a few pages at a time, it takes a long time to go from url to url and pages open very slowly. I have a p3-550eb sys with 384mb pc133. Printer is a hp712c.Thanks, Frank.

[a Bill]

The printer is a Windows based printer. Meaning that it uses the CPU from your computer to print. Go to a regular printer that does its own processing and you won't have that problem.

[frankpel]

What do you mean by a regular printer. Do you have any examples?

[NDC]

What is your Parallel Port set to? SPP, ECP. or EPP, Try setting your Parallel Port setting to ECP or ECP + EPP in your BIOS. Tell me how it goes. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

[Mr.Goodbytes]

HP DeskJets have drivers that suck on your processor like a starving baby. I'm not sure how to get around that, or even if there is a way.

[neo_otyugh]

i have seen HP printers run the spu up to 100% use when printing...this was on a p3450 and a p3500

[NDC]

Really??? I use a HP Deskjet 950c ECP Mode and I see the CPU utilization fluctuate between 42% ~ 67%. Never any higher. It gives me NO visible decrease on CPU performance.

[frankpel]

We'll, I changed the bios setting from spp to ecp+epp and did not notice any difference. Especially slow is browsing down my long list of favorites. I thought the printer has a buffer memory that stores what you are printing, freeing up the cpu, am I wrong? Perhaps the hp712c has a small buffer. I print out alot of technical articles for my job, and it is at the point I should think about a new printer. Are they all like this or is there a printer that will not drain my cpu resources? thanks frank

[Ironforge]

For optimum performance get a print server http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/biggrin.gif

Zero performance hit when printing documents.. heh..