Slow network printing – gigabit switch vs older switch

Our printing via the network at the small (8 user) office at work is mega slow, especially if it is images or drawings.

We inherited a pair of old 16 port switches and a phone network. They are not gigabit.
I added TP link cable router with wifi.
Print engineer chap who came to sort a printer issue suggests that a new gigabit switch would transform network speed, especially for printing.

Before I spend money – is he right? Any way I can check the speed?

(Yes I am a ran amatuer, yes I do work for a charity. No we won’t may one meeelion pounds for a proper company to come at fit it…)

for a tenner it might be worth attaching a printer and a PC to one and seeing what happens?

http://www.ebuyer.com/392451-d-link-go-sw-5g-go-5-port-gigabit-switch-go-sw-5g-b

If you look at the print queue when you print something “slow”, how big does it say the job is?

If it’s hundreds of MB or more then it may help. The more likely culprit is a slow processor or lack of RAM in the printer itself – once it gets your job then it has to crunch through it to work out how to put it on a page. You won’t be able to do much about that other than a newer, speedier, more expensive printer.

Need more info really.

Is anything else slow or just printing?

What format are you printing in? PCL / PostScript / something else?

When the printing is slow, do you mean it’s slow to start the print, or slow in actual printing?

Checked for updated drivers?

Are they actually switches or have you acquired a couple of hubs?

What model of printer is it? (If it’s of sufficient vintage it might well have a 10/100 network interface and not support gigabit speeds at all.)

Are you printing directly to the printer, or via a print server of some form? (A dedicated print server might solve the problem.)

Oh, and,

The PCs that are printing, are they on the Wi-Fi or fully wired?

Its probably the time it takes for the PCs to process the jobs, rather than the time it takes to send it to the printer.

PC’s, most are i3/4gb+ machines.
All wired on network, I couldn’t tell you exact spec as it was installed when we arrived.
Printer is nearly new Ricoh C3503 monster.
It is only printing that is slow, occasionally internet. It just takes aaaaaages to start any large file (couple of mb+), colour A3 landscape architect file of 5mb took a couple of hours to start last week.
The job sits in print queue.
The hubs are marked ‘lucent technologies’, marked ‘links to main cabinet’ (we rent our broadband from landlord who has a few leased lines) and ‘outlets’.
All print drivers are latest from Ricoh site, PCL6.
Direct to printer, no print server.
If I plug my laptop direct into printer, it is uber fast to start.

Printer is nearly new Ricoh C3503 monster.

Google would suggest that it comes with a 10/100 NIC, a gigabit interface is an optional extra.

The hubs are marked ‘lucent technologies’, marked ‘links to main cabinet’ (we rent our broadband from landlord who has a few leased lines) and ‘outlets’.

Model number would be handy, may be a sticker on the back if there’s nothing on the front?

If I plug my laptop direct into printer, it is uber fast to start.

Direct how, what sort of cable / connection?

The job sits in print queue.

The queue on each individual PC?

When you look at the print queue, what is the job status? If spooling, that often means the job is being processed by the printer. Even at 10Mbps, it shouldn’t particularly slow unless the jobs are massive.

Few more thoughts,

Is there a PCL5e driver you could try? Times may have changed, but back in my Citrix days PCL6 caused no end of arseache.

Try a generic driver, HP Laserjet 4 or similar. Does it still do it?

In the printer properties there’s a ‘render on client’ option. Try changing this.

Try disabling Driver Isolation if it’s enabled.

Google would suggest that it comes with a 10/100 NIC, a gigabit interface is an optional extra.

According to maintenance man we have gigabit version.

Model number would be handy, may be a sticker on the back if there’s nothing on the front?

I need to borrow a step ladder – the bloomin cabinet is 9′ up the wall…

Direct how, what sort of cable / connection?

My network cable from the wall, that I use each day. It is blue 😉

The queue on each individual PC?

Yes each individual PC print tray – it is slow to work through the whole file, you can see it (very) slowly going while saying ‘pending’

The metis c3503 is normal quick to print and generally problem free print wise.

That file types are you printing and from what application? And what drivers are you using , 3503 pcl6 P’s or the universal driver.

I would connect a laptop directly and print directly and see what happens

I’d try reading the thread, then you’d have answers to most of those questions. (-:

My network cable from the wall, that I use each day. It is blue

Ah, that’s your problem. As everyone knows, red is much faster than blue. Orange would be more enduro as well, which might help.

I have some red ones. The secretary even has a purple cable… Ooooooh. 😉

I followed your example cougar

Bazinga!

Mat have u tried plugging the mfp directly into a desktop PC ?

Yes. It was reet quick. There is something between laptop and printer that is slowing it all down

If it was a few seconds, even a few minutes, we could cope. But measuring picture prints in hours……

If you’ve got a situation where it’s fine and one where it isn’t, it’s a simple case of eliminating variables. Plug into the patch panel where the printer presents in the cab, does it still do it? Both into the switch? Etc etc.

It does sound like a switch issue, but I don’t understand how everything else is fine. Unless you only use the network for printing and Internet? What happens if you copy a large file between two PCs?

I haven’t tried shifting stuff between two machines – will try in the morning.

I also know someone who may have a room full of spare bits – I might see if he has a switch I can borrow.

Can you ping from a PC to the printer? How long does that take?

Does the printer have any kind of logs that you can get to?

I have seen an occasion where a damaged port caused the layers in a PDF to be printed incorrectly and slow printing, might be worth a look also see what happens if you switch off bidirectional printing.

I haven’t seen the gigabit option yet tbh the normal one works just fine even with biggish files

there are no logs to see or download

Set everything to fixed 100Mb/full duplex, if the PCs or printer are set to auto it can get screwy if there’s 100Mb stuff in the middle (if everything was 1Gb then auto would be the correct setting).

Yup what FW says, first thing you check on a LAN with issues is if its 100Mb are there ports set to auto rather than 100Mb FD

If try plugging the printer in to a different port on the switch and see if that helps, probably change the cable as well.

Set everything to fixed 100Mb/full duplex

In the 10/100 world, if one end is set to auto and the other manually nailed up to 100/full, you’re going to have a bad day. But blindly nailing up ports is a bad idea IMHO, the critical thing is that you need to ensure they match. Nailing gigabit ports is almost always the wrong thing to do. Unless it’s a troubleshooting step of course.

An off-the-shelf switch is going to be Auto, but a second-hand switch might well have been nailed. Before you start buggering about with speed / duplex settings though, you need to isolate the switch as the problem. (That’s why I hadn’t mentioned it thus far, by changing things at random you could make it worse.)

I Am Not A Network Engineer.

Thing is it’s likely in a default config the Gb NIC ports (assuming on the printer and his PC) will be set to auto but the switch is running at 100Mb – auto-negotiation is not recommended in that scenario (it’s not really recommended full stop on 100Mb, they only got it working right with the 1Gb implementation).

I agree the switch is the issue here but as he doesn’t have a Gb one to swap in he’s better off changing the printer and PC NIC settings to fix them at 100/full. If that speeds things up he then has a choice either to fix all the other PCs or buy a Gb switch and change the test PC and printer back to auto.

Check there is nothing else that has picked up the printers IP, unplug the network cable and see what happns when you ping the printer.

if it still responds then there is a conflict.

Also try turning off bidirectional support under ports, and SNMP status under “Configure Port”