Cisco 3560G switch culprit for delayed print jobs?

penguinking · July 2010

So I have intermittent issues with an HP P2055dn (built-in JetDirect) communicating with various Windows 7 desktops, whereby it'll print immediately on some jobs and takes minutes or not at all on other jobs. This is regardless of the document type (Word, PDF, test pages, etc). The computers having problems communicating with this printer are all on the same network segment 192.168.101.x, and they're all connected to the same Cisco 3560G switch. I can ping the printer at 192.168.101.160 from any other computer in the office, but I've noticed that sometimes the response time is <1ms and other times the average is roughly 200ms. It varies widely and there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason. I've also seen the print spool dialog box show that, say, a 5MB job is only, say, 1MB complete as if it's having trouble spooling that amount of data to the HP P2055dn's RAM. I've replaced the network cable connecting the printer to the switch with a brand new CAT5e, which didn't change anything. I've removed the printer from Devices and Printers and installed a Win7 32-bit driver from HP's web site. I have seen in the past that sometimes HP's universal drivers cause issues with assigning static IP addresses, but I've also isolated that by unchecking the "HP universal port" under printer properties in Devices and Printers (Port tab), and just adding a standard TCP/IP port and therefore a static address at 192.168.101.160. That also doesn't work. I've checked Windows Services (services.msc) and made sure the Printer Spooler wasn't disabled. Nothing. I've also never had this problem with a Windows XP machine before in this particular network (this exact same printer used to be connected to a WinXP box for years with no delay in print jobs ever).

Any help would be greatly appreciated and I'm more than willing to try additional tasks. I feel like this can't be anything but related to the switch, but since so many other computers on the exact same switch don't have this problem printing to this printer, well, don't really know what it could be.

penguinking · July 2010

Here's a ping result:

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7600]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

C:\Users\penguinking>ping 192.168.101.160

Pinging 192.168.101.160 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.101.160: bytes=32 time=127ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.101.160: bytes=32 time=149ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.101.160: bytes=32 time=172ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.101.160: bytes=32 time=195ms TTL=128

Ping statistics for 192.168.101.160:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 127ms, Maximum = 195ms, Average = 160ms

EDIT: I've also just noticed that I can't add this printer to any computers right now due to the following error message:

"The installer is unable to complete the network installation at this time. Please verify the following and try again:

- Your device and your PC are connected to your network.
- All the settings you entered are valid.
- Firewall software is not interfering with your Install."

thehourman · July 2010

Dude, try this:
Go to Control Panel of a workstation and right click on the default printer.
Choose Printer properties, and click the Advance tab.
Under the Advance tab, click the Print processor.
I am 100% sure that the hpzpp5mu is selected. Instead select the winprint, then click OK.
That should fix the problem.
If not, uncheck the Enable advance printing feature.

fly351 · July 2010

are you sure its not the port that the PC is plugged into? check speed/duplex

Cisco 3560G switch culprit for delayed print jobs?

Comments