XP Printing Problem on Small Peer to Peer Network

[Laird]

User has a small peer to peer Windows XP Professional network. There are
two PCs connected to a Linksys WRT54GS Broadband Router via Ethernet
cabling. One of the PCs is connected to an HP Business Jet Printer through
LPT1. There are two Dell Inspiron 9400 Laptops with 1390 Wireless Cards.
The PC that is not connected directly to the printer via LPT1 has five
profiles. Each one has the printer setup via XP. Originally the printer
tested OK on each profile and on each laptop the user is having trouble
with.

The user states that the printer works fine with the PC connected directly
to the printer. The other PC (not connected directly to the printer) works
intermittently. Below are the errors the user encounters:
print inconsistently. I tried to print something on the other desktop and it
wouldn't print. I tried about 10 minutes later and it worked. Then I tried
to print something else literally 2 minutes later and it wouldn't print. It
says, "Windows cannot print due to a problem with the current printer
setup." I don't think the printer is online. How do I get it online? When I
try it says, "Printer preferences cannot be displayed. The printer spooler
service is not running." <<

Does anyone have any ideas what might be going on? Is this something in the
XP configuration? I have searched TechNet and don't find much on this
issue. Any help appreciated!

Regards,

-PL

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[Guest]

:

Does anyone have any ideas what might be going on? Is this something in the
XP configuration? I have searched TechNet and don't find much on this
issue. Any help appreciated!

Yep, I've met similar issues. Just a few times. Just a few..

I take it this is an HP inkjet, perhaps a 2200? If so, these models are
always problematic as regards networking, and you may never get a 100%
satisfactory result.

However , points you should check are:

See that the drivers on all the computers are the same release. Some print
drivers send data between computers in an intermediate format, and if the
drivers are non-identical at either end of the cable, then all sorts of
strange things can happen.

User rights: If you have guest networking on this probably won't be an
issue, but if not, then user-rights affect printers as well as file shares.

Try another printer cable. I've known these units to be very touchy about
parallel cables. Make sure it's a quality IEEE bidirectional cable. Or try
USB.

Unlikely to be a problem if the printer is a 2200, but on the A3-capable
1220 a favourite cause of jams is a computer set to use the wrong paper size.
Once a wrong-sized document has been sent , it can be quite difficult to
clear the 'log jam' this creates. To clear the problem usually involves
identifying the offending computer and clearing its print queue, and then
power-cycling the printer. To stop this I generally turn off the width
sensor, as the jam-ups it causes are much more of a nuisance than
occasionally printing 'on the roller.'

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Basically, I would always advise the use of a LASER printer for networking.
This should be a model which accepts PCL or Postscript input. If it has a
network port capable of LPR printing then this wil simplify things even
further, you just assign it an IP address and install the LPR client (it's in
Windows components in Add/Remove Programs) on the computers. You then have a
printer which will work independently of any host-computer or user-account.