Bidi vs. EPP vs ...

H

Howard Kaikow

Previously, I had LPT1 configured as BiDi.
A couple of daze ago, I changed to EPP.

When I rebooted, Win 2000 discovered the printer again and I re-installed
the printers I had deleted.

The printer is usually powered down.

Does BiDi use more CPU than EPP, even when the printer is off?

I ask because, I am noticing significant performance gain in running
Retrospect Backup.
Could reconfiguring the printer port have have caused a performance
improvement?
 
B

Bill

Howard said:
Previously, I had LPT1 configured as BiDi.
A couple of daze ago, I changed to EPP.

Out of curiosity, why did you change the setup?
Does BiDi use more CPU than EPP, even when the printer is off?

I ask because, I am noticing significant performance gain in running
Retrospect Backup.
Could reconfiguring the printer port have have caused a performance
improvement?

Not directly. The port configuration wouldn't cause any noticeable
difference...only a benchmark test could detect any difference, if it
was present at all.

I suspect you had a driver conflict with the backup software that was
corrected by changing the printer settings.
 
H

Howard Kaikow

Bill said:
Out of curiosity, why did you change the setup?

1. In other threads, in this and other forums, I had described a problem
that I was having installing drivers for my Lexmark printer in one OS on a
multiboot system. All the systens are Win 2000, but on 1 system on the PC,
the Lexmark driver installation program was failing during the install of
the bidi driver, apparently, because the Lexmark installation program
thoughth that the system was Win 9x, not Win 2000.

No problem with the other systems on the multiboot system. Ther trouble
occurs in the one system in which Win 2000 was upgraded in place over win
98, the others were clean installs of Win 2000. So there's something in the
upgraded system that is confusing the Lexmark driver installation problem.

I decided to remove the LPT1 port to try to force the system to recognize
new hardware. With one exception, I found that I could do this by
uninstalling the relevant printers ans then changing the port settings in
the BIOS from Bidi to EPP.

All but one of the systems recognized the printer as new hardware and greyed
out the use bidirectional setting. The Win 2000 that was created as an
upgrade held on to the "use bidi" and did not recognize new hardware.Even
tho the BIOS is set to EPP, the printer still works, but there's something
that is dearly holding on to the bidi driver. The Lexmark uninstall software
will not uninstall the bidi driver for that OS installation,

Again, this problem occurs only in the Win 2000 that was upgraded to Win
98.

2. I was under the impression that EPP was a newer technology that I might
as well use. I had been using bidi only because the system originally came
with Win 98 and the NEC techies told me that I should use bidi for the
original NEC printer I purchased,
Not directly. The port configuration wouldn't cause any noticeable
difference...only a benchmark test could detect any difference, if it
was present at all.

I suspect you had a driver conflict with the backup software that was
corrected by changing the printer settings.

I run Retrospect from a Win 2000 that was a clean install just a few months
ago. Likelihood of a driver conflict is rather low.
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Top