Printer lags online

[Rich Kelly]

I have an HP Pavilion and an HP Deskjet printer. Also, I
use dial-up to connect. All drivers are up to date. All
updates, etc are installed.
My problem is that, when online, if I want to print a
document, it can take 7 to 8 minutes for 2 pages to print.
Also, If I open the active printer window, it will show 4
pages before it starts to print. This happens with
anything I print online, it will download twice as many
pages before the printing starts.
I contacted HP concerning this problem and they referred
me to KB article 318378 (How to reinstall or repair
Internet Explorer and Outlook Express in Windows XP). This
article first says to run SFC /scannow. I have done this.
The problem still persists. It then goes on describing how
to do an in place upgrade of Windows XP.
I don't really feel comfortable tampering with the
installation of my operating system as it came pre-
installed (OEM) and I don't have any disks for a reinstall
nor do I have a means to back everything up.
Is it really necessary for me to reinstall windows to
resolve this problem or, can I just reinstall IE6 ? How
about is there a tool to find and fix the problem ? I just
want to be able to print faster while online.

Rich Kelly

 

[Mike Tezak]

Rich, when you print online do you mean from Internet
Explorer 6? Do you click the "Print" button on the Toolbar
or are you using the menu, i.e., File/Print?

I'm running WinMe and MSIE 6 with all the updates
downloaded and if I try to use the menu button OR on some
pages a "Print this Page" link or icon that's embedded on
the website my HP Deskjet also hangs. I never had the
patience to wait for more than about 30 seconds for it to
print so then I try to "purge" the print job via the
little printer icon in the system tray and it does change
from saying "Printing" to "purging" and STILL nothing
happens so I quit trying and now I just do
the "File/Print" on the menbu bar and works perfectly like
it does on Word, Acrobat, or any other software I'm
running.

I couldn't find an appropriate article in the Microsoft
knowledge base looking under Internet Explorer 6 or
Windows Millenium, but the guys at HP sent me a link to
Microsoft Knowledge Base article #227094 which described a
problem using the print button on the menu but the article
was for various iterations of Win 98 and MSIE 4 and 5.
Nothing on WinME or XP was mentioned.

Maybe it's just a problem on HP printers, but even so,
you'd think enough people have complained to get it fixed
by now!

Mike

 

[Rich Kelly]

Mike, Yes, IE6 is my default browser. I usually click the
print this page/document link on the page, if there is
one. Otherwise, I click the printer icon in the toolbar. I
have also tried file/print per your suggestion, no
difference.

Rich