[BC] my troublesome HP OfficeJet 7000

[Jason R. at KGVL - KIKT]

> What would happen if my USB port used by the new 7000 printer, is too slow 
> for some reason?
>Any advantage had by connecting the printer directly to the network?

Quite possibly, and, YES.

  I'm not 100% positive, but if you are using USB to the printer, and trying 
to hit it from all the other machines in house...
it sounds like you are SHARING it.

Sharing and Networking are not really the same.

  All of the HP 7000+ series that I've used have had their own on board 
print server.  I suppose yours may not...
but... if it has RJ45 and nic...

They do not need to be shared, they need to be networked. Imho.  If you're 
going to share it, do it off the parallel cable, not the USB.

AS FOR ME... after going through the same problems you're talking about...

I put my HP printer directly on the network, as it has a nic card built in.
.
I give mine a fixed address, being careful to get all the net/subnet stuff 
correct, and I pick an address
that I know there's very little chance any DHCP machine will try to get... 
or... I go to the router and
specifically assign the address there as well.  The printer has an awkward 
but capable way to manually nail down the IP
from the front panel of the printer itself.

Then I run the HP printer discovery tool. "Hewlett-Packard Company HP INPW 
Software and Jetdirect CD
Last Updated: June 2008"  Woohoo. It worked.  I nuked all the copies of 
SHARES that
sales reps created to hit it... and installed it as a STAND ALONE NETWORKED 
DEVICE.
It worked.

  It is available from HP as a download and will first search the network 
for ALL printers that
are actually HP and actually Networked (not SHARED).

If you have not already downloaded the correct driver for the printer, I 
think the program will go to HP online
and get the driver for your OS.

  My machine now spans networks; it receives TCP and IPX/SPX without a 
problem.
It works better off a hub than a switch in my current configuration.

  I've had to make sure that I've locked up a few ports so people don't try 
to email to it.

The only time I had luck SHARING HP printers across a dozen machines was 
when I hooked them up as a
PARALLEL device, not a Serial USB, and then only when I allowed the sharing 
PC to organize the spooling.
Perhaps that is part of your slowdown.

Setting the printer properties on each machine to 'Print After the Last Page 
is Spooled' helps a bunch.
These printers do NOT have a gig of memory; but they will print a small book 
in about :60 seconds
(I say that because I've seen half-inch thick stacks of documents several 
times an hour coming out of them) .

Music logs - commercial logs - news desk - all coming out of it without a 
problem plus all the various
crap people print from the internet pages they like ... it's much cheaper to 
print on this B&W 7050TN Hp machine
than my Xerox full color machine (7132Workcentre) though they are BOTH on 
the same network.

  The HP is faster for single copies.

Perhaps you have a singularly misbehaving printer, but, they do sell an huge 
pile of these and don't seem to have
THAT big an issue making them work. 7000, 7020, 7045, 7050... they do a have 
a couple of choices for drivers for each - PCL, PCL emulation, that sort of 
stuff.
Go simple and backward compatible on these... PCL5 if you have to.

  I'd say slow down, try not to let it frustrate you so bad, and go at it a 
bit differently, so you can get a diferent answer.

It's not the printer causing the problem, I am sure, as I've seen the same 
problem, and I had to sort the problem out, I'm telling you what I had to do 
to make it
work (a couple of times now I've done it, so now when the boss drags out 
another HP from some other business he owned, I know what
I have to do to make it play well where ever we're putting it in... seems 
like these were his favorite printers, cause they run CHEEP.)

 In the old days HP built a box to add on to function as a printer server 
but you don't always need that.  Check the HP specs for your machine, 
download the manual, take your time, you can make it work.

  It is NOT a bad machine.  It's just a printer.

Jason