HP2600 and W2k3 as a print server

[SimpleSi]

Over the past 12 months I've introduced w2k3 servers to replace Win98 machines file sharing machines.

And over past few months, I've finally decided to use HP2600Ns when my beloved HP Business Inkjets have finally died on me.

However, when I use the server as a print server and share it out and get my workstations to print through it - I get problems with jammed print queues.

In other places, where each workstation prints directly to the printer via a TCP/IP printer port - no probs.

Is this just happening to me?

regards

Simon

[Ric_]

Are you using the latest driver and if there's an alternative driver have you tried that?

[contink]

Also worth checking if you have the spool settings to print once finished spooling.

I had something very similar with a K550 officejet and in the end the only thing that really worked 100% was to connect it using a USB cable rather than connecting the win2k3 machine to the hp printserver and then sharing from that.

It's been working ever since... but that's hardly a great scenario if you'd rather have the 2k3 machine doing the spool grunt work.

[tosca925]

Similar problems on this post here, I don't think they sorted the problem at their school either.

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/showthread.php?t=13558

[contink]

Similar problems on this post here, I don't think they sorted the problem at their school either.

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/showthread.php?t=13558

Dammit... Good catch, I'd totally forgotten about that... Changing the port from an HP printer port to a standard TCP/IP port can fix the problem.. I knew I'd missed something...

[m25man]

The 2600n is a Host Based Printer intended to print over ethernet using the Hosts resources.
This was updated by the 2605n which has limited PCL support onboard.
Whilst the 2600n will take a job from a server based queue it was not intended to work that way and HP do not make that very clear.
There's more processing power in my kettle and there's not a lot of RAM in this printer and it's not upgradable either!
I have been down this pathe before when Vista was launched and there was no 2600 support for 10 months!
@ 300 dpi an A4 Page is 4 million dots x 4 Layers (M,C,Y,K) that 16 Million dots per page hence the 16Mb onboard buffer.
If somebody sends too big a job and the server can't communicate with the GDI part of the printing process because you have it doing 31 other tasks as well as a print server it will stall and may not be able to restart.

There are loads of posts on the HP Forums about host based printing, I suggest you have a good read before wasting countless hours on this.
The correct and HP approved method is to create an HP port on each Workstation and install the driver locally.
Not much use on your school network.

As a rule if your paying less than £500 for a colour laser it's probably Host Based so watch out. Check the specs very carefully.

I'm sorry if that's not what you wanted to hear but this is a common mistake made by a lot of school admins on a tight budget. Buy cheap pay twice I think the saying goes.

However I would add, when connected to my LAN with the dedicated drivers on my MAC's and PC's this is a cracking little printer for the £145 I paid for it from Costco's.

[SimpleSi]

The correct and HP approved method is to create an HP port on each Workstation and install the driver locally.

I don't mind doing that (that's the method I've used in the past with my business inkjets) I just wanted to try it the "proper" way


regards

Simon

[Lee_K_81]

We have about 15 2600n in school. We've not had any problems setting s2003 to do the print sharing. Works like a charm for us.

[TheScarfedOne]

I had this problem earlier in the year with these beasties... they keep going offline. After a long call to HP Support via our printing supplier - I got a solution. Its worked without a hitch ever since. What you need to do is...

1. Ensure that the printer driver is the most current, and install as a Standard TCP/IP Port

2. DISABLE Bi-directional support (this is why they go offline - apparently, they dont like this!)

3. Restart your spooler services

On another note - look out for a load of conflicting HP Printer drivers! We had loads of fun and games with the 2100/2300/1320 drivers - which bombed the spooler on the local machine. In the end - are now using universal.

[SimpleSi]

@lee
So how did you do you install yours then?

I've done this at 3 schools - the first I did the old way - each machine printing direct to the printer using the setup.exe from the disc. This worked fine. The school doesn't have a w2k3 server so no other option really.


The 2nd school I setup just before Xmas - server had been in a while. I replace the printer - used the disc setup.exe to set it up on the server, shared it and then browsed for the shared printer from each workstation.

I thought this was working until I went in last week and the ICT Co-ord told me how he'd had to be deleting print jobs to unclog the print queue every few days (nice of hime to not bother me with this ).

Spookily, installed another one on Monday at another school and noticed the same myself whilst testing it out so I reverted to direct to printer and problem vanished.

regards

Simon

[SimpleSi]

1. Ensure that the printer driver is the most current, and install as a Standard TCP/IP Port

2. DISABLE Bi-directional support (this is why they go offline - apparently, they dont like this!)

3. Restart your spooler services

Do you mean just on the server or on each workstation?

regards

Simon

[SimpleSi]

BTW I love all the advice to use latest/ current driver - I wish I wasn't the only person in IT who's ever had an upgrade to a piece of software that introduced a regression

regards
Simon

[ricki]

I had a problem with these when I first set them up on a new print server and traced it to a couupt spooler file. I move the spooler file to another folder and this cured the problem for a few days and then it stopped working again.

I had another look and the kids were sending huge files of hundreds of meg to the printer and it was filling the drive so I had to move the spooler file to an empty drive and that cured that.

Richard

[TheScarfedOne]

@ SimpleSi: Just on the server - the workstations you map to the printer should pick up the settings you specify on the server.

There was a time just before xmas where a load of dodgy drivers made their way out of HP - caused a few spooler service crashes due to conflicts. There is also some strange pre-requisit for HP Universal 6 with some drivers which I have recently found - like the new HP 1320 driver. Wierd...

Ended up tracking down a load of the older drivers for my printers in the ftp site.

[SimpleSi]

@stuart

Could you let me know which version you ended up using and I'll give that one a go.

As a quick fix on Friday, I added the printer again using standard TCP/IP and disabled bi-direct.

I then unshared the original one and used the same share name on the re-added printer - I'll see if I'm lucky during the next week or whether I'll have to around all the machines (Primary - non domain setup) and remove the printer and re-add it again

regards

Simon