Disappearing printers

When trying to send a document to a HP laserjet 4 an error
is generated and all of the printers disappear from the
list. The following message is in event viewer

The timeout waiting for the performance data collection
function "Spooler" in the "C:\WINNT\system32\winspool.drv"
Library to finish has expired. There may be a problem
with this extensible counter or the service it is
collecting data from or the system may have been very
busy when this call was attempted.